
an 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




<^STANDARD^> 

COMMERCIAL POULTRY 

CULTURE, 

BY 

^ARTIFICIAL PROCESS, I> 

OB, HOW TO MAKE 

Poultry Culture Profitable, 

DR. T. B. SPALDING. 



185. ' 



Chicago, ^^<f washing^; 

AMERICAN POULTRY JOURNAL." 

1885. 



.513 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by 

C. J. WARD, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



In view of the universal and increasing interest in Poultry Culture 
and its great and growing magnitude, and the general earnest in- 
quiry coming from everywhere concerning this pursuit, its princi- 
ples and its profits and remarking the general inacquaintance among 
the masses with the fundamental facts and plainest principles that 
underlie and control this industry, as related to, and assisted by 
modern science, we have thought it essential to success to place be- 
fore the general public, the new beginner and all who are interested 
in anyway in poultry, its underlieing principles, without a full 
knowledge of which no one can foresee or shape the issues of his 
enterprise, and cannot, therefore, wisely decide to engage in it with 
capital, healthful confidence and assurance of safety. The mission 
of this book is to formulate such facts and to afford the philosophy 
upon which they are founded. In other words we aim to offer in 
clear and simple style the essential principles of Poultry Culture 
which control and place this important industry upon a reliable busi- 
ness basis. We offer it to all with our fraternal regards and hope 
that each will be pleased and profited by it and anxious to assist in 
sending everywhere its fruitful truths by consciously commending 
its merit, T. B. Spalding, 



INDEX. 



CHAPTER I. 

Standard and Commercial Poultry Culture, 

CHAPTER II. 

Poultry Culture Conducive to Happiness, &c, 

CHAPTER III. 

The New Industry Assumes Two Forms, &c, 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Inherited Need of this Industry, &c, 

chapter v. 
Incubators, Use of Electricity, &c, 

CHAPTER VI. 

Author's Experience with Incubators, 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Influence of Heat upon the Eggs, 

CHAPTER VTII. 

Food. Food in its Relation to Life, &c, 

CHAPTER IX. 

Chicken Cholera, when it may be expected, &c, 

CHAPTER X. 

Roup. What it is. Its relative and real Importance. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Gapes. What it Resembles compared to Croup. 

CHAPTER XII. 

A Poultry Farm, Divisions into three parts. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Principals of Standard Poultry Culture, - 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The difficulties this Industry has to Overcome. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Cost of Raising Broilers, &c, - 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Poultry Farm for Eggs. - 



21 

28 

37 

50 

63 

70 

77 

83 

86 

91 

100 

111 

118 

125 




Sfeandapd and Gsmmepeial 



CHAPTER I. 

OULTRY Culture, though carelessly conducted and 
scarcely ever studied or sustained by confidence and cap- 
ital, is yet, the largest, the most important and profitable 
of any business product of the United States to-day. 
Though frequent failures attend the reckless attempts to build vast 
fortunes from this pursuit at once without capital, without exper- 
ience and without a just conception of what i3 required to insure 
success, yet, we fearlessly affirm that no other avocation on earth 
will average a larger net return for the time and study, the talent, 
care and capital involved than poultry culture. We reluctautly af- 
firm that there is no other known industry so little studied and with 
whose plainest principles the people at large are so generally unac- 
quainted 

Wherever an Incubator is operated in public, it is marvelous to note 
the vast numbers who inquire, "how long it takes the machine to 
hatch, and how is it possible for the chick to escape from the egg 
without the assistance of the hen?" 

Poultry Culture as a scientific industry is really in its infancy and 
the idea that study and science and principles are involved surpasses 
the modest comprehension of many. 
Indeed the almost universal idea is that poultry culture, like Di- 



6 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

vine Grace and Christian Virtues, are all good, and wise, and well as 
ornamental indulgences, if only one is not asked to study it, to be 
governed by its principles, and above all, it must not cost anything. 
Then at once it generates difficulties and doubts and if its claims be 
honestly advocated and a little pressed, suspicion is started, that 
though the advocate is doubtless sincere, he is certainly overly san- 
guine. 

Zeal is certainly an essential element in the prosecution of any en- 
terprise and he who succeeds in any avocation must, like the intelli- 
gent, progressive poultryman, "drink deeply at the well of enthusi- 
asm." The deeper his devotion the more efficient his service and 
the more he magnifies the merits of his cause. 

Poultry Culture, like every other occupation, should be prosecuted 
as a profession by those who especially love it ; for, such an impet- 
us, or inspiration, through all past history, has been the surest guar- 
antee to great success. Thus, from the love-labor, the ardent zeal, 
or inspiration of Luther, Melancthon, Bacon, Washington, Noah 
Webster, Franklin, and Fulton, were Religion and Liberty and Liter- 
ature, and their offsprings, Phylosophy, Invention, the Arts and 
Sciences all rescued and resurrected from the fog and fable of slum- 
bering ages and given a firm foundation on the high and luminous 
plain of history. The benedictions that have descended upon the 
whole human family from the intelligent zeal and service of these 
sages have covered the world like a mantle of light, have enshrined 
their names in remembrance that will continue co-eval with all com- 
ing ages and perish only with time and the solemn temples and the 
great Globe, itself. 

But, these services, however great, do not discourage nor close the 
avenues to other altitudes resplendent with rare and equal distinc- 
tion. Bacon, first of all philosophers that ever lived, broke boldly 
away from the forms and fashions about and before him, and, tear- 
ing the falsehood and flowers from the face of philosophy, he taught 
and popularized the sublime conception and practical truth, that 
rather than wrangle amid the vapors and vagaries of metaphysical 
distinctions, the higher and holier and wiser work for the common 
sense people of this world is, to learn what is useful first and what is 
ornamental afterwards — how to earn an honest daily living and how 
to earn and make good shoes and clothes. 

And so, Dear Friends, of all the great questions that crowd ami 



STANDAKD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTRY. CULTURE. i 

comfort and confound the age, how little, indeed, of all, or any that 
is universally useful do we really know ? In the so-called learned 
professions ; the law, the ministry, and medicine, and in agriculture, 
or the application of science to the furtherance of any of the great 
business industries— the frequent failures and the universal disaster 
and distress result from want of practical acquaintance with the es- 
sential principles and the details demanded in each respective avo- 
cation. There is no saying more trite and true, more sensible and 
suggestive than that, "The man may wisely be feared who has deeply 
drank in and digested one worthy work. " Rather let me say that 
thoroughness is advised in every thing. 

The purpose, therefore, of these plain and unpretentious . pages is 
to discuss impartially the principles of poultry culture — to place 
fairly before those who do me the compliment of their careful con- 
sideration of a few facts drawn from study and experience in the in- 
terest of poultry culture as a profession, because the pertinent ques- 
tions ccmo up from everywhere, " Will poultry cultnre on a large 
scale pay ?" In other words, are there any clear and certain princi- 
ples of universal application upon which the enterprise of poultry 
culture may be safely and profitably prosecuted and enlarged to com- 
mercial magnitude ? Are the inherent qualities of the hen, her diet 
for different duties, and her diseases, and the exciting and predispos- 
ing causes that contribute to all her ills yet known? There are sure and 
sensible preventives, and, are there high and hopeful hygienic laws 
that relate as reliably to fowls as to the human family ? Can the 
principles and proper mating for market and for ideal standard 
specimens be confidently prescribed, and can ovulation in hens be 
urged, increased, ox restrained, or safely stopped at will ; and are the 
priciples of incubation fully understood, and can natures whole 
operations in the dcvicate processes of incubation ba plainly pointed 
out, and all of nature's requirements as completely met by the ap- 
plication of science and educated common sense as by the ancient 
slow and uncertain system of setting hens ? In short, is there any- 
where an authoritative publication asserting the principles ofpoid- 
try culture covering these and other kindred questions? 

The absence of such a book and continued inquiry suggest the 
necessity for some such authoritative declaration of principles ; and 
will, we trust, be an acceptable apology for offering this book. 

In all we shall offer, or assert in this work we shall aim to be hon- 



8 STANDARD AND COMMEECIAL POULTEY JOUBNAL* 

• 

est, and our highest hope in being able to satisfy all of our sincerity 
is, in every thing we offer to give the reason why. Thus are the writer 
and reader on equal footing and all enabled to see the force, or folly 
of every idea. Thus shall we hope to bar that brainless charge of 
" offering only theory." 

To those who dogmatically deal only in the delicious diet of their 
own experience there seems to be, somehow, an insufferable sensi- 
tiveness when scientific truth corrects some antiquated error. Es- 
pecially to those who are innocent of all ideas, there is an in- 
herent odium inseparably associated with the epithet of "Theory." 
Whenever an old physcian relaxes his grip on professional principles 
and for twenty, or thirty years ruminates back and about over pro- 
fessional pastures that have been closely picked and beaten down and 
dry, he always inflates with self-sufficiency and wraps about in rai- 
ment of perfect experimental self-righteourness and from the throne 
of such immaculate wisdom he hurls the terrible taunt of " theory " 
at the clearer heads of all who love the light and seek the truth and 
offer to all some sensible reasons : so every body may clearly under- 
stand just what they intend to do. 

What is theory ? Why theory is the principle by which any opera- 
tion is done. We build houses and cultivate commerce and calculate 
time and tides and do all the wonderous workings of the world 
through theory. Those, who, therefore, deride its dictates affirm, in 
effect, that they are blind and unguided. Theory sent Columbus in 
search of the New World. Theory opened the golden gates and re- 
vealed the mathematical grandeur in the deep and delicate prob- 
lems of astromical science. Theory unfolded to Fulton and Frank- 
lin the practical utility of steam and lightning and Theory has been 
the motive power in all the brains behind all the discoveries and in- 
ventions, all the arts and sciences and agencies that have advanced 
the world on and up to the full blaze of glory that illumines the nine- 
teenth century. Theory is the strand of classified pearls of the im- 
mortal mind. Theory is the essence of intellect, the royal child of 
cultured thought. While we love intelligent experience as our 
mother we embrace intelligent theory as our wife. And so in our 
onward march through the theme before us, we shall aim to so asso- 
ciate the two and make our thought, our principles, our theory so 
plain, so practical, so self-evident that even " the wayfaring man, " 
the overly captious may comprehend and be content, and so, without 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

further exordium, we enter, upon our subject. 



CHAPTER II. 

POULTRY CULTURE CONDUSIVE TO HAPPINESS AND HOME CONTENTMENT. 



THE love of animals and pets is inherent in the human 
race ; and especially such as may be subservient both to 
pleasure and to profit ; and thus it is, in a degree, that 
domestic poultry has become almost as universal as vege- 
tation and indigenous in every door yard. The private importance 
of poultry culture can only be estimated in the absence of fresh eggs 
and spring chickens which must certainly ensue unless ones-self, or 
others prosecute this pleasent pursuit in excess of self supply. In- 
deed, were these denied the epicure, the rarest luxuries of modern 
life were lost and cook and kitchen soon would lose their potent 
power "to sooth the savage breast. " Coffee and cake, confection- 
ary, pastry and pies and pudding all cheerfully confess the delight- 
full, and all-important, the omnipotent influence of fresh and finely 
flavored eggs. Nor is this influence exclusively confined to taste, 
but enters as brain food, as we shall note ere long upward into the 
divine domain of human intellect. 

It is, therefore, impossible to over estimate the private importance 
of this delicious and most healthful diet ; and, following the neces- 
sity of their supply we come to consider the almost incredulous pub- 
lic demand for poultry and poultry products ; and so, we may in 
some measure determine the very high commercial status of this im- 
portant industry in other countries and in our own. 

In a series of thoroughly elegant, full and accurate articles in the 
Fanciers Gazette of 1883-4, Capt. Jas. E. White of Englewood, Ills., 
has contributed to poultry literature the statistics that cover this 
question so completely that, by his courtesy, I quote at length from 
a source so faultless and full : 

" Belgium, with an area of 11,373 square miles and a population of 



10 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

5,253,821 is one of the smallest and most densely populated powers 
on earth. About 60 per cent, of its area is under the most exhaustive 
cultivation and that being all of it that is capable of producing good 
crops. In order better to understand its extent it may be stated that 
Belgium is no larger than the state of Georgia while its population 
is three times larger, and this little country, as shown by its statis- 
tics, produces annually 274,967,824 eggs or 48 eggs for each man, 
woman and child in Belgium. 

This, remember, is accomplished in a country where the most per- 
sistent effiort is made to cause the land to produce the food necessary 
for home consumption and where a vast amount of money is ex- 
pended on the cultivation of the soil. From such a necessitous sys- 
tem of farming they derive no profit from their crops and are driven 
to strictest economy and subsist only by aid of poultry culture. 

If such results obtain under the adverse circumstances just cited 
what grand possibilities suggest themselves with infinitely better 
facilities in every sense in such an avocation in a land like America. 
Our soil yields the richest returns for the slightest labor and here 
grain enough is annually wasted to feed the entire population of 
Belgium and yet in the United States the products of poultry culture 
do not meet the home demand. 

"Again France, with an area of 204,147 square miles of which 
only 98,460 are capable of cultivation, realizes more than $200,000,- 
000 annually from her poultry interests. The present population of 
France is 38,905,788 which, if an equal distribution of land were 
made, which is capable of cultivation, there would be two acres to 
each, and yet, with all the disadvantages of climate and the contrac- 
ed acreage and high cost of food for fowls which here abounds almost 
spontaneous, France, notwithstanding, furnishes England annually 
over 800,000,000 eggs. In addition to this enormous exportation to 
England, the French people annually consume over 2,000,000,000 
eggs, thus making a grand total of 2,800,000,000 eggs annually pro- 
duced in our little sister republic. The value in cash of her impor- 
tation to England annually is $13,000,000, and those consumed at 
home is placed at $35,000,000, and adding to these the poultry export- 
ed and consumed at home at $75,000,000,000 and $45,000,000, for stock 
carried over each year and it will be seen that the poultry industry of 
France represents an annual business of $168,000,000. 

The egg producing districts of France being Normandy, Picardy, 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POUXTBY CULTUEE. 11 

Artois, Soilsonuais, Yexin and Britany, are cold and damp as com- 
pared with this country, vastly inferior in natural and climatic con- 
ditions. There space being contracted, their fowls are confined and 
highly fed and so subjected from crowding to sickness and contagion, 
and, yet despite all these and other disadvantages the French poul- 
try farmer realizes a net profit of from 15 to 85 per cent., or an aver- 
age of over 20 per cent, from the poultry industry. 

It will thus be seen that poultry culture in France, under a 
thorough system, with climatic disadvantages, limited range and 
want of forage, the difficulties are conquered and commercial poul- 
try culture made highly remunerative. But, passing from the diffi- 
culties, the drawbacks, the drudgery of poultry culture and its com- 
merce in foreign countries where eggs, rather than by wholesale 
hatching by machinery, appears to be the main purpose of the poul- 
try man, we come to consider from the same statistical source the 
extent of the poultry industry in America under its present develop- 
ment and its capabilities under more energetic and scientific man- 
agement. Careful inquiry reveals the astounding fact that the 
United States instead of producing more eggs than is required for 
home consumption, imports annually over $3,000,000 worth of 
eggs. We find that in 1872 we imported 6,000,000 dozens, which at 
24 cents per dozen amounted to $1,440,000. The announcement that 
the demand so much exceeded the supply for this article of food 
should have fertilized the growth of this industry until home pro- 
duction attained such magnitude as to make importation unprofita- 
ble. But it failed to attract the attention of the producing classes 
and so we find that, our population constantly increasing ten years 
later, or in 1882, the United States imported 13,000,000 dozen eggs 
which at 24 cents per dozen equaled $3,120,000. 

In 1868 a convention of butter, cheese and egg producers was held 
in Chicago and such reliable statistics as could be, were gathered 
without a systematic effort being made in that direction and were 
placed before the convention and limited though they were, they dis- 
closed the fact that, the egg trade alone, amounted to $180,000,000, 
and with the poultry marketed to $250,000,000 per annum. The sta- 
tistics presented were very incomplete being taken from a state here 
and there and in part made up from the knowledge of each in his 
own locality and so the sum fixed upon did not fully represent the 
value of the industry throughout the whole United States. Careful 



12 STANDABD AND COMMEECIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

research reveals the fact that New York State consumes and supplies 
to her merchants and those of other eastern cities and states and to 
vessels sailing from her ports about $90,000,000 worth of this kind 
of food annually. Consider these figures a moment and you will be- 
gin to realize the magnitude of this industry. But New York does 
not produce what she sells or consumes. Enormous consignments 
come continually to her markets from foreign countries and from all 
over our land. Only a small portion of what she handles is produced 
within her borders. Not one-half received is consumed within the 
states, the larger portion being reshipped to surrounding cities and 
states, supplying vessels, places of pleasure resort, and the great ho- 
tels and eating houses of the cities within a radius of thirty of forty 
miles from New York City comprising a population of over fifteen 
million consumers of these supplies. New York state and city con- 
sumes about $45,000,000 worth of eggs and poultry annually and her 
regular population of both state and city being about 5,082,871 the 
average consumed by each individual in the state of New York is 
about $9.00 of poultry food anually and when we consider the 
interminable train of strangers that pour perpetually through her 
cities the wonder is that these figures are not magnified many fold 
in as much as eggs enter into nearly all our food and spring chickens 
may be found on every bill of fare. The fact is that this food cannot 
be furnished in sufficient quantities to meet the demand in all great 
cities and it is reasonable, therefore, to assume that the consumption 
of poultry food by each individual throughout the nation is as great 
as in densely populated cities, and a moment's reflection and common 
sense will justify the conclusion. In whole sections of country where 
agriculture forms the main pursuit, remote from cities and markets, . 
where every body earns their living by manual labor which requires 
much more animal food than supplies the same numbers addicted to 
sedentary life and raising such food upon their farms the amount 
consumed is vastly greater than in cities. In summer, when such 
food is mostly needed and unable long to keep the carcass of cow, 
cr calf, or hog until consumed or unable to sell, they draw their meat 
supplies very largely from the feathered flocks as needed and thus 
enormous numbers of eggs and fowls find their way to the table of 
the farmers and feed " the countless millions of the sons of toil." 
Again, we may further strengthen the assumption that these supplies 
are in greater demand out side of the gre .t cities by the fact that, in 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY. CULTUBE. 13 

every village and inland town in America poultry and eggs are the 
universal medium of exchange between the farmer and family gro- 
ceryman ; so that really, the inhabitants of these smaller incorpora- 
tions subsist much more extensively upon poultry and eggs than the 
larger and more populous cities where they are less plenty. ' The 
foregoing being self-evident facts, it is therefore, modest and more 
than safe to draw our data from the commerce existing in New York 
as a basis for calculation with respect to the country at large. 

Therefore, if New York state and city with her 5,082,871 steady 
population, independent of her transient population consumes $45,- 
000,000 worth of poultry and eggs annually, the United States, with 
her 55,000,000 population must consume $495,000,000 worth, and in 
order to determine the value of the entire poultry industry of the 
country we must add to this $64,000,000 at to the value of fowls re- 
tained for breeding and laying stock and $600,000 the value of blood- 
ed fowls and eggs and thus it reveals the sum total for this industry 
in America of $559,600,000 annually, or as the full statistics would 
more than show, $600,000,000. " 

Thus, we have liberally drawn from the articles and arguments 
the facts and figures of Capt. White, because the statistics are as- 
tounding and yet unquestionably true, and because the research is 
most thorough and the whole subject handled with that earnestness 
and elegance, power and precision that merits a prominent place in 
poultry literature. The same able writer has also affirmed that, "The 
poultry industry in the United States surpasses by several million 
dollars the annual value of wheat. " 

Consulting statistics from other sources to verify the accuracy of 
these statements we find his figures invariably correct. From the 
circular of Mr. J. L. Campbell, of West Elizabeth, Penn., author and 
manufacturer of the Eureka Incubator advertised in this work, and 
commended as one of the best of machines, the author draws from 
the United States statistical bureau the following which is official. 
For the year 1882 the following figures reveal the cash value of the 
products of the United States. Cotton, $410,000,000 ; hay $436,000,- 
000 ; dairy products $254,000,000 ; wheat $488,000,000 ; poultry and 
egg products, $560,000,000. Notwithstanding this, the later is the 
only product we do not export. Our entire yield, which is vastly in- 
sufficient, to meet the demands, is all consumed at home and be- 
sides, in 1882, statistics show we imported from foreign countries 



14 STANDABD AND COMMEBOIAL POULTBY OULTUEE. 

13,000,000 dozen eggs as against 6,000,000 dozen in 1872. " Still the 
clamor increases, the prices advance and the importation of these 
supplies from foreign countries more than double with each decade, 
such is the present business status of poultry culture in this country. 
Statistics are the dry est of intellectual diet, and yet beyond all things 
else on earth figures are fullest of truth. Mathematics reveal the ac- 
tual reality of things. 

They have shown us that the net profits of commercial poultry 
culture in foreign countries under the greatest disadvantages, are 
from 20 to 85 per cent. They have proved that of all the products of 
America eggs are mostly in demand, greater by far, beyond anything 
else than the supply. And they have shown, in consequence, our an- 
nual importation of eggs to reach a cash cost to this country over 
$3,000,000. This vast sum goes out of this country to foreign coun- 
tries annually for eggs. Why don't we further cultivate this pleasant 
and profitable industry at home ? We have seen that the state of 
New York consumes $45,000,000 worth of these products annually and 
this divided by her 5,000,000 population, equals $9.00 of poultry and 
eggs consumed each year in the state of New York by each inhabi- 
tant, and so it may be seen by multiplying our national population 
of 55,000,000 inhabitants by $9.00, the amount consumed by each, 
that we have $495,000,000 as the sum total for poultry and eggs con- 
sumed each year in this country. 

Then add $64,600.00 for stock and blooded fowls, and we reach the 
enormous sum of 559,000,000., or, if full statistics could be given to 
date the sum total would doubtless surpass $600,000,000. 

Efforts are now being taken to make the statistics of American 
products reliably complete. 

Statistics have shown that in comparison wheat, the greatest agri- 
cultural product in this country, is surpassed by poultry and eggs 
over $72,000,000., which amount of money is over four and a half 
times as much as President Jefferson paid France for the Western 
half of this continent. And this $72,000,000., remember, is in excess 
of the total cash value of the whole wheat crop in this, the greatest 
wheat growing country on the Globe. Hogs and hay and corn and 
cattle and cotton, wheat, oats and other American products are each 
and all cultivated extensively in certain sections, but altogether un- 
known in others, but poultry, like the blessed sunshine that imparts 
its favors and force to castle and cottage, brings its benedictions 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 15 

every where, wherever humanity hath found a home, and this univer- 
sality of poultry culture, explains its strength and importance and 
proves that its private importance and commercial magnitude is al- 
most fabulous and opens to capital and business competency the 
grandest and most fruitful possibilities. And yet, this giant young 
industry is but in its infancy. The world is just awakening to this 
traffic from the long dream of ages. 

Until within the past few decades the idea of poultry culture as an 
industry, poultry culture, as a commerce was unthought of, unknown 
and ignored and, yet, a prejudice prevailed that bars the greatest re- 
sults, that weakens the confidence of capital to its claims. The poul- 
try culture of the past as compared with the present contains a gen- 
eral complexion of degradation that is almost comical. Indeed an 
honest cartoon or charicature of the poultry of a few years past 
would be equally ludicrous and difficult to draw. Until within the 
past 35 years the raising of poultry was never attempted by men. 
The wives of a few farmers, more intelligent and enterprising than 
the rest, were allowed to tolerate a few fowls that were a mongrel 
mixture of all the endless varities that had cohabited together, 
crossed up incestuously, ran riot and reveled in romance since the 
exit from Noah's Ark. These fowls, as I well remember them, com- 
bined every conceivable shape and color and all were covered by the 
truly suggestive name of " Dunghill Foivl. " The name is not of 
classic origin, but rather relates to the source whence they scratched 
out a scanty sustenance. They were taught by the terrors that were 
thick about, and by the suggestions of stern necessity to enter the 
realms of morpheus or retire to roost in the language of the time, 
on the fence, or in the trees and to forage in the fields and gardens 
and on grain stacks and in corn cribs and otherwise steal what they 
could from all other well fed stock. They anually hatched their 
chicks from the eggs they succeeded in hiding in the weeds and 
hedges, among briars and underbrush, behind old logs and stumps, 
in fence corners filled with smartweeds and fennel. Their eggs were 
hunted by crows by day, and by coons and other enemies by night, 
and thus these wild and wayward hens had a rough, romantic and 
cheerless chance. Often against all odds, however, two or three 
came creeping and clucking out of copse and chaos with one little 
sorrowful, sickly chick, and they were allowed to care for and com 
fort it, since their time was computed of little consequence. Again, 



16 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTEY CULTUBE. 

some old blue biddy, with educated cunning above her kind, would 
overcome all opposition, and, sheltered thus from the rapacity of all 
around her, this long lost and finally forgotten, this ancient, earnest, 
dunghill hen would at last come out from her covert with a chick for 
every egg she hazarded with her life on the alter of devotion to mat- 
ernal duty. The later summer and autumnal months, devoted thus 
to " nest hiding " and natural hatching, was the only serene, un- 
tarnished taste of pure repose and perfect peace that over filled and 
satisfied the soul of these guileless, goodly dunghill hens. 

Now where on earth, in nature's vast domain, nor in colleges or 
vast cathedrals can there be learned such lessons of care and caution, 
of energetic honesty, of patient, persistent fortitude and faith as 
there, cloistered and self-concealed alike from friends and foe, 
was silently wrought out in the life and labors of this spontaneous, 
self-supporting barnyard poultry of the past. Though, like the 
christian cultured and truly good young Indian, or the haughty, 
highborn, romantic and realy noble red man of whom we read, they 
have been gathered in by life's relentless reaper and are gone, and 
covered up by the polished plowshare of civilized progress, still, for 
all the solace my youthful innocence found in their society and ser- 
vice, I owe to their memory this recognition, this tender tribute, 
this sad but fond farewell. But, to return to their history. These 
flocks were mated promiscuosly and by their own impulse and 
prowess. Often thirty or forty males meandering up and down and 
fighting over half as many females all indulging in a wholesale sys- 
tem of loose incestous revelry and riot. Such of this ancient stock 
as survived the wild winds of winter, its piercing cold, and ice and 
sleet and were not starved nor frozen on the roost, emerged in the 
spring with scaley legs and frozen combe and feet, with feathers full 
of vermin, and all so out of order that seldom they succeeded in 
dusting out the lice and gathering from grass and garbage nutrition 
enough to bring the abused systen back again to vernal action, to 
honest vital business, by the first of April or May. These ancient 
farm fowls were much the same in every section and state all over 
the continent. They crowed and cackled and looked alike, they wore 
the same general complexion and were characterized by the same es- 
sential cussedness everywhere between Maine and Mexico and from 
Oregon to Atlantic Ocean. 

One general slush, of nature's brush, 
Had made them all akin. 

Their average weight at ei^liteen months old was three to five 



STANDAED AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTUBE. 17 

pounds. The hens often hid their nests in the haymow or on top of 
stacks, would fight anything and often pursue a hawk high on the 
wing for hundreds of yards trying to retrieve a stolen chicken. They 
seldom carried surplus fat, they sought few favors but took care of 
themselves from choice, from habit, from instinct and from neces- 
sity. They combined all conceivable colors from the beantiful and 
brilliant long sickled cock to the wretched and revolting frizzly fowl 
so odious that it offends the Lord and the laws of nature. And then 
we had the "bunty,"or rumpless rooster, "the creepy," or duck 
legged fowl, and best of all, the sturdy old Dominique and many 
more all merged, and mixed, and married at will, into the great pie- 
bean family of mongrel barnyard poultry. These birds were thus 
bred for ages, forward and backward, incestuously and so long, that 
each specimen stood for self and the whole vast society whence it 
sprung ; it represented everything in general and no distinct type, or 
strain, especially, except when scrutinized or even at the first inquir- 
ing glance the specimen could always be recognized as an undisput- 
ed dunghill bird. Thus, everywhere as we have suggested chickens 
were tolerated or allowed to live, but never carefully cultivated; and, 
if they yielded little, as compared with latter years their cost and 
care were nothing, and so altogether, the net profit of the old barn- 
yard system could never be less than one hundred per cent. But 
birds thus bred were seldom fit food, for, only when fed from na- 
ture's lap were they either fat or fertile. Intimately associated, with 
such a system of poultry culture as I have sketched, my youthful ar- 
dor knew no bounds ; my thoughts were always with the chickens. 
This partiality for poultry culture has completely possessed me from 
earliest recollection, and grew and systematized with later develop- 
ments, and yet remains a pleasure that is past understanding. 

The personal cares of poultry culture, supreme over everything 
else is the one kind of labor I really enjoy. 

Thus matters moved on until about 1855 when an enterprising man 
from Massabhusetts emigrated to the far distant west and settled in 
Illinois within three miles of me. He brought among us the most 
marvelous creatures that the wild and tragic freak of poetic dreams 
could picture, They were the most splendid specimens of the great 
invincible and voracious shanghaie. 

I walked three miles to see those " giant celestials." At once they 
inflamed a furor all over the West that was only equalled in the 



18 STANDARD AND COMMEEOIAL POULTEY CULTUBE. 

Eastern States whence they came, and where the so-called " hen 
fever " had been raging for several years with all the force and dig- 
nity of an epidemic, until finally, as I have indicated, it spread west 
ward until the unsophisticated citizens of Illinois felt the infectious 
fever for the great fancy fowls." I scarcely need to say we all fell 
down and worshiped this ancient bird of paradise, all offered any 
price for eggs and soon high grade birds abounded everywhere; were 
sent to distant relatives and friends and so the impetus and improve- 
ment in poultry culture began and spread in Illinois and somewhat 
similarly all over the states. The color of this early imported stal- 
wart stock was buff and differed from the stately strong and sturdy 
buff cochin of today only in legs and breast and body. In other 
words, the modern buff cochin is a lineal descendant from the far 
famed shanghaie ; cut down from his original altitude, spread out 
and yet condensed in every direction, grandly guilded and perfected 
in plumage and, in short, bred up by a standard uniform rule to more 
consistant, symetrical and useful shape. Later the Brahma breeds 
were introduced, and soon these Asiatic, thorough-bred birds diffus- 
ed their blood all over the American Continent. Their influence for 
good was soon felt in almost every flock of fowls ; and so there was 
awakened everywhere an extravagant excitement over the newborn 
business of poultry culture. The attempt by many, at first, to breed 
these fowls as they came to us and so perpetuate them pure met with 
the most universal and discouraging failure ; solely from inacquaint- 
ance everywhere with the first essential conditions of success in 
poultry culture. Naturally enough, the glowing high heat of the so- 
called " hen fever " cooled quickly down, to be replaced by a preju- 
dice that ruined at once the splendid commerce so recently started 
in " fancy fowls." The fever seemed fatal until the cause collapsed. 
Thus, for a time the first attempt at what we now call " standard 
poultry culture " met with unmerited and ruthless rebuke ; and yet, 
to this day the true inwardness of this interesting episode in the his- 
tory of American Poultry culture is wrongly referred. 

I dissent from the diagnosis that the public high appreciation of 
these fine imported fowls was in any just and proper sense a fever, 
or a diseased condition, or fanaticism. The very high prices paid 
for the finest specimens then and ever after quoted in evidence of 
the wholesale public craze to sustain the charge that, some design- 
ing Yankee sage had secured " a corner " on this new commerce and 



STANDARD AND COMMEBCIAD POULTRY JOUBNAL. 19 

then prepertrated a heartless humbug upon the credulous public and 
that such had killed the commerce, is absurd ; the prices then paid, 
I say, were nothing to be compared to what hundreds of fancy fowl 
breeders would freely pay today for the very finest specimens after 
the revival of this splendid industry. Nor is the disposition at f rand 
and speculation and courting the royal favor and so aspiring to se- 
cure the coveted corner in this commerce less today than then. But 
this, and only this distinguishes the early decline and the auspicious 
opening of that industry from its strong and sturdy status of today. 

The people are educated now and know the needs and actual neces- 
sities of such stock. Then a Poultry Journal was unknown, or, at 
least, poorly appreciated and paid, and from one end of the land to 
the other the great slumbering industry of poultry culture was utterly 
devoid of information and of literature. 

Naturally, then, a people thus conditioned, whose prejudices were 
wrong, whose poultry reading had not begun, and whose care for 
this class of stock was such as I have sketched, who knew and cared 
nothing for the comforts and diet of domestic poultry, but confi- 
dently expected all feathered fowls to breed spontaneously and be 
self-sustaining naturally, I suggest, that the sudden introduction of 
thorough-bred poultry among such people must end at once in mis- 
fortune, in the death of the stock, from abuse and neglect, in general 
discouragement and in early collapse of the commerce. Such indeed, 
is the universal history of revolutions in everything. The cause that 
occasioned the awakening can never be sustained until the people 
are educated en masse up to the required condition. Percipitate ac- 
tion, as in that case, before the people knew the needs and necessity 
of the situation, endangers defeat and injury to the cause. 

The dificulty in the early decline of the "Hen fever" implied no 
fault, no fraud, but rather relates to poxdtry periodicals and their 
careful study. There is absolutely no cause or commerce that can 
long live in ignorance. Special and general education must under- 
lie everything that survives, and poultry culture is no exception to 
the operation of that axiom. Such, we believe, explains the quick 
collapse of the early commerce in pure bred poultry. So much re- 
lates to the past and seems to us essentially necessary in this connec- 
tion in order that we may soon consider whether the poultry com- 
merce of the future is secure in its claims of greater permanency. 
Reverting to those years of general agitation from 1855 to 1860, dur- 



20 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

ing which this earliest commerce "rose and reigned and fell" the 
irrepressible conflict of almost a century ripened into the great revolt 
of 1860 and civil war for 5 live long years absorbed the nation's time 
and talent, care and capital, and so delayed the reconstruction of this 
cause and commerce. Meantime, the thorough-bred was laying the 
firm foundation for an industry more substantial. New blood had 
been infused and bigger and better fowls had followed and soon the 
people every where began to see the priceless worth of what they had 
thought a fancy fraud and costly luxury. Encouraged again from 
better founded, healthier, and more deliberate public appreciation 
the patient, persevering men who knew the public need, with pen 
and poultry press, and organized effort cautiously kindled again the 
smoldering sparks of pure bred poultry culture. Then the larger, 
beautiful and better birds that abounded from these larger breeds 
suggested a purpose and source of greater profit to the market poul- 
trymen and so demonstrated the right relation between the breeding 
of ptandard and commercial poultry. 

The ingrafting, thus, upon the ancient seedling stock, enlarged 
and invigorated the issue into a vastly more lavish and delicious 
yield. Thus, the market poultryman perceived the possibilities of 
his business opening up her avenues of trade to almost incalculable 
extent. 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY CULTURE. 21 



CHAPTER III. 



HE NEW INDUSTBY ASSUMES TWO FOEMS, THAT OF MAEKET AND OP 
STANDABD POULTRY GULTUBE, EACH DEPENDENT ON THE OTHEB. 
THE INFLUENCE OF THE STANDABD, THE EXHIBITIONS, 
THE AMEBICAN POULTBY ASSOCIATION. THE INFLU- 
ENCES OF THESE ALLIANCES. THE OMNIPO- 
TENT POWEB OF POULTBY JOURNALS. THE 
PBESENT STATUS OF POULTBY CULTURE. 



CLOSELY identified with this industry and, indeed, its 
author and essential support, the breeding of thorough- 
bred fowls, found solid footing and universal favor. Thus 
identified in healthful relation the two young industries 
gathered separate from and continual force and, moving forward in 
their respective and reciprocal spheres, have grown as we have seen 
into a commerce that is almost incalculable. Thus we have traced 
the origin of the first attempt at improvements and organization 
of this industry to the importation of "fancy fowls;" and their 
influence upon the native mongrel scrub stock scattered all over 
the continent. We have indicated the growth and steady develope- 
ment of continually better birds, and, finally the renewed awake- 
ning after the war, to organized efforts under the impetus and 
auspices of the standard and poultry journals. However clear 
and conclusive the fact that the real value of domestic poultry 
had more than doubled since the first importations, yet, the 
public, generally, nor to any considerable extent had felt the 
marvelous effect of poultry literature and illustrations until about 
the year 1865, when, the poultry journals began to find their 
way to the homes of thousands through the mails to all sections of 
the country, imparting the most careful instruction in all the prin- 
ciples and details of poultry culture that ages of blind experience 
could never suggest. Thus, a second enthusiasm pervaded the 



22 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

country, but thus renewed, it come to stay, because, strengthened and 
sustained by education and literary culture and acquaintance with 
the fundamental conditions of success. Conventions were called, 
poultry societies organized, a National Organization finally effected 
and for the purpose of concert and consistency in pure blood poultry 
culture in the upward and right direction towards ideality of form 
and feature. The general judgment of all was evoked and what we 
now recognize and reverence as " the Standard of Excellence^washe- 
gotten of the largest experience and best brain of that studious 
strong and earnest organization. 

The first National Organization met in 1872, and the necessity of 
a standard canvassed and finally consummated • since which time, 
though subjected to criticism and correction arid official revision, it 
went into operation everywhere as the will and ablest idea of the 
high consultation of America's best breeders. Thus, under this con- 
stitution, or organic law of the land with respect to poultry culture 
may be dated the dawn of Scientific Poultry Culture in America. It 
became at once and still continues the one supreme idea wherein all 
efforts at improvement centers as the ideal pattern by which toper- 
feet the useful form and fa ncy finish of the Fowl obedient to wise 
and worthy dictum. The American Standard of Excellence thus 
formed is a strictly representative instrument and, in the very best 
and broadest sense, a purely democratic decree. Its influence for 
good at once vindicated the wisdom that announced the necessity of 
something that thus should organize and operate the nation's forces 
to one common end, so that all might comprehend and execute a com- 
mon plan. What to most minds was before chaotic, in correct con- 
ception, uncertain in matters of symetrical outline, and altogether 
mixed and muddled in all the delicate details of form and finish, of 
each and every variety, the standard now made clear and well defin- 
ed. It arbitrated all questions, it settled all disputes and afforded 
everywhere the same sublime design and definition of a perfect pat- 
tern. Hence, what before was clash and conflict, was settled by the 
standard's high decree into a universal unity of thought and effort 
and end. Like the constitution of a country, which, by common 
consent, becomes the supreme law of the land under which all other 
laws that regulate and control the mightiest and minutest private 
and public affairs are framed, so the standard in poultry culture 
vitalized and legalizes andunderlies everything. And so, when I con- 



STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CULTTJBE. 23 

template the wonderous work of the past thirty years of poultry cul- 
ture, and ask, and seek to answer the inquiry and satisfy my con- 
science as to what hath wrought the great and grand result, the truth 
irresistable suggests the standard as the central power of one stupen- 
dous whole. Without the standard to interpret and teach, poultry 
culture was chaotic and in universal conflict without light or law, 
without foundation or faith, without concert of purpose or principle 
or plan, all operating adversely at every angle instead of moving 
under its operation and governed by this guidance up the avenue of 
the future on peaceful parallel plains and so demonstrating that a 
standard rule of action can alone secure that unity of plan and 
purpose essential to the prosperity and perpetuity of any society, 
cause, or commerce. 

Under the old articles of confederation the American government 
operated aimless in every direction with state and federal functious, 
limits and liabilities, but dimly denned, each alternately acting out- 
side its proper orbit and the whole federal fabric that has guaranteed 
our marvelous growth and greatness was found by experience to be 
so defective before the adoption of the Constitution, or great nation- 
al standard law, that our whole political system, as it then existed, 
has since been aptly characterized as " A mass of stubborn societies 
held together by a rope of sand." 

Second only to the standard and as interpreter to it are poultry il- 
ustrations. There is scarcely any other power so potent to force 
the public education forward and upward to a high appre- 
ciation of poultry culture as chaste and elegant and life-like illus- 
trations of our finest standard fowls. There is no eloquence like 
silent, earnest eloquence ; objective, life-like, splendid pictures. 
The lesson learned, the impression produced by the master painter's 
scene of the Last Supper deepens the credulity of the most dormant 
faith in the sacred stories of antiquity. The picture brings them 
right before you, bright and fresh, and at once awaken's the liveli- 
est interest in what the picture represents ; and thus, as educators 
delineating different parts and special sections and special feathers, 
these correct and effective drawings awaken a universal love and 
longing for such specimens, and so they attract the attention, they 
strongly appeal to our taste and finer feelings and soon persuade us 
to begin at once to buy and breed until we attain to the end delin- 
eated in^the illustrations. Such is the power of illustrations, of correct 



24 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CUXiTUBE. 

cuts, for fancy fowls when sustained by the precepts of a good poul- 
try Journal. This combined influence gave birth to the Poultry 
Exhibitions and here the emulation and rivalry inspires all to ex- 
cel and the spirit of infection spreads until everywhere, the growing 
influence of all these grand factors of this great industry is felt, and 
a new focus of influential force radiates out from every exhibi- 
tion. 

Such, then, are the educational alliances that have acquainted the 
American people from ocean to ocean with all the essentials and de- 
tails, the pleasures and profits of standard and commercial poultry 
culture. 

Incidentally, the foregoing considerations have suggested the pres- 
sent status of poultry culture in the United States since the revival of 
this industry, and especially during the past ten years the constantly 
operating influences, to which we have adverted, awakened special 
interest in this pursuit, and, not content with the size and symmetry 
alone, other aims have been successfully wrought out by which the 
poultry of the present are infinitely superior, both in beauty and act- 
ual utility, to any ever known before in the history of the world. 

Among the especial excellencies to which we have but recently at- 
tained in poultry culture may be mentioned prolificness in eggs. 
This special function which lay dormant during cold, inclement sea- 
sons, among the poultry of the past, is operative among the better 
breeds at present, almost all the year. Prominent among the influ- 
ences effecting this result was ; first, special selection of the most 
prolific layers, these being carefully separated and subjected to super- 
ior care, contributed still further to effect this desired purpose, and 
so special strains were established that were noted especially for egg 
production. Then, to widen these families and so avert the debility 
of inbreeding, new varieties ivere composed combining the elements 
of size and egg fertility. Thus, the Asiatic male and the medium 
hen produced a progeny which was stamped by a top cross that should 
make the new variety medium, large or small, as desired. 

The purpose of the Plymouth Rock was to produce a specimen 
medium in size between the large and awkward asiatic and the 
smaller breeds, and yet preserve the egg fertility of both. To this 
end the light Brahma male and the black Java hen were mated and 
their progeny subjected to the American Dominique cock, which 
stamped the characteristic color of the Plymouth Rock and, by care- 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 2o 

ful selection of the better barred and more beautiful of these and 
breeding to that end, the beautiful blue barred bird, large in size and 
elegant in everything, has been builded up and immortalized by 
american skill and enterprise. 

Again, the Silver Spangled Hamburg and the Dark Brahma were 
mated and from this cross came the new and prolific and popular 
breed of poultry admitted into the standard family of fowls under 
the title of Wyandotte. 

The success of these combinations encouraged still others in pro- 
cess of experiment and so the future outlook in this direction is 
fruitful and infinite. New methods of productiveness and new in- 
ventions for incubation and the application of scientific ingenuity 
for tbe comfort and care of the illimitable life that is constantly 
thus evoked and active energy formulating everywhere and embark- 
ing in the promising pursuit of poultry culture, and others, well 
established and still unable to fill the smallest per cent of their 
orders, with population constantly increasing and the demand be- 
yond our production of eggs over 16,000,000 dozen in 1884, and still 
the demand for poultry and eggs increasing and high prices prevail- 
ing everywhere, for these products, exhibits but partially the present 
status of poultry culture in the United States* Never, perhaps, in all 
the past was an industry so full of merit and yet so neglected and 
under estimated. Under the present impetus and universal awaken- 
ing encouraged by literature and scientific invention its future is full 
of the richest returns for capital and labor required in its commerce. 
But like every other avocation poultry culture is a separate and dis- 
tinct and earnest avocation. Its cause and commerce admit no 
idlers nor business drones. It must have brains and capital to con- 
trol it like everything else. 

r Poultry culture can be made remunerative by those who love it and 
labor and study patiently and persistently. 

In short, it demands practical business education, steady, industri- 
ous habits, some capital and more common sense. Thus qualified 
poultry culture is the most pleasant and profitable of all pursuits. 
Poultin/ literature is the life of this labor. The poultry journals 
pour perpetually a flood of light into the deep darkness of our dor- 
mant understanding giving us the essence of everybody else's ex- 
perience. 

The best prescription, then, to induce that love and enthusiasm so 



26 STANDABD AND COMMEKCIAL POTILTBY CULTUBE. 

essential to success, is poultry journals well read and duly digested. 
Lest this should seem dogmatical, arbitrary, and peculiar alone to 
this pursuit, it may be suggested that such is true in every avocation. 

All, to succed must study the teachings of others in their special 
field of labor. 

Thus, the drudgeries and difficulties that would otherwise discourage 
are the more easily overcome from the love that abounds in the 
business. 

The actual or approximate profits to be derived from the business 
is difficult to predetermine. So much depends on proper manage- 
ment, on business capacity and capital. The issues are subject to 
the same axioms that operate everywhere. Talent, industry and 
economy in this as well as elsewhere, with patience and persistence 
will lead to wealth. It would therefore be unsafe to suggest anything 
further than the possibilities that open up through this giant young 
industry. Death and taxation are said to be all that are certain on 
earth. Accidents are known to be operative everywhere but not so 
liable in poultry culture as in other avocations ; because we are con- 
tracted m our operations, are under the auspices of science and can 
therefore better control those conditions essential to success than if 
left to the mercy of the elements that are irresistable and so often de • 
stroy all business calculations. 

May we venture to further offer some suggestions in behalf of the 
claims of poultry culture as a profession that seem to us especially 
pertinent ? There is scarcely a prominent industry ir all this coun- 
try that is not suffering from overfnllness. Large merchantile es- 
tablishments, banks, railroads, corporations and farmers all feel the 
irony of fate, or adverse fortune. There is sluggish circula- 
tion through business channels, there is, indeed, congestion, distress 
and, more or less, complete collapse in many points and places. 
Why ? Because these several avocations are overdone. The Millers' 
Organization and the rigorous winters and the long, continued culti- 
vation of the one cereal upon the same soil assures the farmer of 
several things, namely, that his crops are overcrowded, his land is 
over operated and the great milling monopolies are organized against 
him. Well, what shall we do ? Why, poultry culture is in its infancy : 
its fields are rich and capable of making yours still richer. Its re- 
sources are almost incredible. It calls for recruits. It can't furnish 
the food that millions would purchase of you at any fair price. 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 27 

Here then, is your opportunity to rest your land and bring back the 
organized monopolies to respect your rights. Poultry culture thus 
assists in drawing off the overcrowding of all other industries. It is, 
indeed, to-day not only the most prominent and prosperous of all 
the industries, but the greatest of all ; because, as we have seen, it 
depletes, draws off the overcrowding of all and so becomes an equal- 
izer of the nation's industrial forces.' 

The immense and constantly incressing demand can never be sup- 
plied. One hundred and fifty million meals cooked and consumed 
every twenty-four hours in the United States will always insure the 
highest price for fresh eggs and broilers and so successfully bar all 
over production. Poultry culture, therefore, as compared with all 
other avocations, has certainly these very strong points in its favor. 

In furtherance then of what we have suggested we come in order to 
consider the practical operation of this new industry. 



28 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 



CHAPTER IV. 




THE INHERITED NEED OF THIS INDUSTRY AS A SOURCE OE NATIONAL 
FOOD SUPPLY. THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OE THE INCUBATOR, COM- 
PARED WITH OTHER IMPROVEMENTS. THE INSTINCT OF THE HEN 
AND HER PROCESS OF INCUBATION. THE DISQUALIFICA- 
TION FOB ENLARGED POULTRY CULTURE. THE TWO SYS- 
TEMS OF POULTRY CULTURE COMPARED. THE 
AUTHORS EXPERIENCE. 

|E have hastily sketched the agencies most actively oper- 
ative in its development ; the influence of the asiatic and 
other pure bred birds upon the native stock ; the unify- 
ing force of the standard ; the public exhibitions and the 
poultry press have combined to create a public appreciation and 
education that has placed the poultry industry ahead of any other 
single productive industry. 

The literature of scientific poultry culture has taken its place full 
well advanced and moving with all things else abreast and along the 
line of modern thought. Science, too, and invention have allied 
themselves with literature to do her service and thus sustained, is 
poultry culture, in all her forms and phases, at once most eminently 
respectable, practical and profitable. 

Deeply impressed with its importance I commend to public con- 
sideration commercial poultry culture, by which, I mean production 
of poultry and eggs for market. The inherent need of this industry 
is indicated by the demand for poultry products. A constantly in- 
creasing population forces the food problem to the front. How shall 
we supply the fast increasing millions with good marketable poultry 
and eggs ? The proudest plume in the coronet of any life is an 
actual contribution to the public good. He who feeds and clothes 
the hungry, the destitute and distressed, or who cheapens their food, 
or otherwise assists them to shut out the inclemencies and cold from 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY. CULTURE. 29 

the cabin and wreathes the face of the family with the smiles of con- 
tentment, and paints upon the cheeks of the children the roses of 
niddy happiness and health, in short, whoever contributes to feed 
humanity is the world's best benefactor. 

Standard, ox fancy fowl culture is really the author of this industry 
and, full of fascination, of worth and pleasure and profit, but let us 
remember that it rests on no really firm and enduring foundation, ex- 
cept we respect the one great practical purpose of actual utility in 
the end. Thus only, can we find a separate and proper place for the 
two great and growing industries, each separate and supreme in its 
sphere, and yet essential to the success of the other. Thus deeply 
impressed a number of years ago I decided to experiment with scien- 
tific poultry culture, to determine if indeed, there opened up in this 
direction an avenue to an honest, independent commercial enter- 
prise. I found as my incentive to this investigation that financial 
distress was felt in societies all over the country. Everywhere I ob- 
served intelligence and education and virtue and moral merit em- 
bodied in young gentlemen and ladies, yet commanding a salary 
scarcely sufficient to meet life's necessities. I found, also, in the 
professions room for industry and honest capacity only on top and 
so I felt inspired with the hope that poultry culture might promise 
auspiciously for those who love such labor. I felt that much surplus 
talent might be taken from profitless pursuits and usefully diverted 
in the direction of absolute demand. In the fullness of time, in the 
midst of necessity, out of the soul of science and common sense the 
Incubator was born and introduced to supercede the slow and uncer- 
tain function of the setting hen. Like the advent of steam enginery 
when swift locomotion became a necessity, for carrying commerce 
and scattering the millions of humanity all over the earth ; like the 
introduction of coal, when the supplies of wood for fuel were wasting 
away before the plowshare of progress ; like reaper and mower, the 
thresher and sewing machine; the printing press and mechanical 
contrivances of every kind which came at the call of necessity and 
then came to stay, so the Incubator appeared in its proper time bear- 
ing the same high credentials. It, too, came to the relief of a system 
that has proved utterally insufficient to meet a great and growing 
public emergency. 

The old system of poultry culture, after ages of effort, was found 
too slow and uncertain and otherwise too defective to found upon it 



30 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL. 

a large and lucrative industry. Statistics have shown that the same 
ancient system was utterally inadequate to meet the demand. Sup- 
plies are called for but the setting hens cannot "honor the draft" 
and so at once, machinery is suggested, and thus, the Incubator be- 
came a necessity. 

The same was true of every industry. When the farmer confined 
his operations to a few acres, the reap hook and the cradle and the 
old fashioned flail were all-sufficient ; but when agriculture enlarged 
her area and the farmers were called upon to feed standing armies 
and non-producing millions of men, when his operations augmented 
to the dignity of a great commerce and he found it necessary to gar- 
ner his grain from thousands of acres, then, the farmer could no 
longer rely on the ancient slow and uncertain system of labor. A 
crisis had come and the operations of the past must be replaced 
by a system that was operated like martial movements by one supreme 
will. 

Thus alone can any great industry be systematized and operated 
to any successful end. Thus, up through the ordeal of practical ex- 
perience and from inherent necessity hath labor saving, reliable ma- 
chinery been summoned to supercede the clashing, discordant work- 
ings of conflicting wills and so enable the farmer, the mechanic, the 
contractor and the poultry man, to put aside all that oppose them 
and push their respective operations under the auspices of scientific 
service, under perfect organization, all working out the quiet coun- 
sels of one intelligent will. Thus, the two systems of poultry culture 
confront me at this point and claim respectful consideration. Here- 
after, I shall call the machine's operations the "scientific system, " 
because the operation with hens, in congregated numbers is equally 
artificial, when worked on a scale of sufficient magnitude to entitle 
it to the dignity of a commercial enterprise as I shall soon proceed 
to prove. The poor hen, like the poor Indian in a state of nature, 
was virtuous and faithful and true to her trust until the demand of 
civilization the onward march of events and the realities of 
scientific research, trespassed upon her territory, invaded the sanc- 
tuary of her seclusion and tore loose the tendrils that entwined her 
affections to her native haunts. 

Scientific poultry culture pleads responsible for the refined deprav- 
ity of these once contented little creatures. For thirty years its em- 
missaries have been tearing down, burning up the briars and under- 



STANDAKD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBT CUIiTUBE. 31 

brash and old stumps and logs, trying to train and redeem the hen 
from her haunts in the highways and hedges and stifle her instinct 
at nest hiding where alone is incubation natural. 

Poultry culture has thus devoted its energies and influence for 
years in trying to conciliate these poor creatures and train them to 
forget and depart from the impressions they derived from the Deity 
and to quietly conform to the civilized notions of scientific setting. 
The result is a failure and the invention of the incubator an actual 
necessity. I repeat that a good old setting hen, in a state of nature 
by which I mean when she selects her own seclusion, when she per- 
fects all her purposes untrameled by any intrusion, when she lays 
and has left in her nest and hovers over and hatches her own eggs, 
in every stage, in this whole natural process, she inspires my highest 
respect and confidence in her capacity. Then we cheerfully concede 
her superior sense, her unrivalled reliability, her God given inspira- 
tion. Then and then only, are her operations natural, her processes 
perfect. Then alone, she evinces that infinite tact, that philosophic 
patience, that delicate tenderness and, withal, that high exemplary 
sweetness that suggests to the student of her character that she is 
swayed by some superior source, some supernatural sense. For the 
long and arduous ordeal of incubation she equips herself in finest 
physical condition. A hen is never fatter than when she begins her 
incubation. The two-fold purpose in this relates to herself and her 
capacity to impart the requisite high heat for the first few days to her 
incubating eggs. She thus enters upon the process and seldom 
leaves her eggs for several days until the vital germ is thoroughly 
imbued with throbbing, circulating life. Then her instinct teaches 
her the safety of going off for food. The natural temperature of a 
hen declines as the growth and circulation of the chicks within the 
eggs increase, first, because of her loss of vital force and flesh from 
loss of food and, more especially, from the absorption of moisture 
from her body by the hot, continuous curreuts of circulating blood 
in the brooding mass beneath her. 

This process lowers the vital heat of the hen and elevates it in the 
incubating eggs all obedient to those laws of osmosis whereby the 
higher and stronger criculation absorbe to itself from what is less and 
close contiguouss. 

At such a time as this the more active movements of the hen, in lift- 
ing herself and often moving alternately each egg to the surface, 



32 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POUXTBY CTJIiTUBE. 

suggests her consciousness that, now the chicks in the latter stage of 
incubation need more air. Either that instinctive sense, or else the 
excessive heat derived from the chicks at this particular period 
causes this frequent needed movement of the hen, and so, the 
constant cooling, fresh supply of air. But soon the incubating eggs 
approach maturity, and the mother feels the electric throbbing im- 
pulse of her tender off-spring, and then, again, for several days, slie 
patiently preserves again her continuous quiet attitude. The little 
chicks are wet and need her highest heat to dry them and to assist 
the processes of nature to absorb the yolk of the egg which, for the 
first twenty-four hours, is the all sufficient food of the chick. 

Thus from the beginning, or through incubation to. the end, the 
maternal instinct of the setting hen, when thus conditioned, is di- 
vinely adapted to the chemical and vital necessities of the embryo 
within the egg and the tender offspring after incubation. Such is 
natural incubation. But when you attempt to tamper with her do- 
mestic duties, when you decide to restrain the wild romance and lib- 
erty she loves, when you attempt to systematize her setting and make 
her serve some mercenary motive of your own, you spoil her inspir- 
ation, you reverse her revalation and so put out the light of her uner- 
ring instinct. The result is she rebels, because she sees and feels 
that she can no longer obey her instincts and, that, therefore, every- 
thing about her is unnatural and artificial. She has lost the sacred, 
dear delights of solitude and secrecy so sacred, to every mother dur- 
ing such an ordeal, and the whole society and situation, thus imposed 
upon her, that she resolves to resent her outrage and wrong. 

Our business is commercial poultry culture. We have arranged to 
breed young broilers for market. We find that the highest price pre- 
vails from November until May. Why ? Because the hens will not set 
in winter. We secure our eggs end then solicit our hens to set; but 
her feelings are outraged, her instincts are dormant, especially at 
this universally barren and unfruitful season of approaching frost 
and snow, and so, under the setting hen system, we find ourselves 
barred from the very best prices when broilers would readily bring 
from 40 to 60 cents per pound, by the prejudice and perversity of the 
willful, wicked hen. 

Now, this is no fancy sketch, but actual fact that cannot be over- 
come. But we decided to double our operations in the spring and 
for lack of room, we cannot, of course, afford each setting hen a sep- 



STANDARD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 33 

arate house, and so, compelled by economy, we systematize and set 
some 25 or 50 or 100 hens in one large room. We have read about the 
" perfect process " and so we give to each a dozen eggs and confi- 
dently trust the whole enterprise to her integrity. We have confound- 
ed all distinctions and quite forgotten that separate hens, in a state 
of nature and hens, domesticated and crowded and confined in great 
numbers are altogether different. They, therefore, feel the artificial 
situation, they become perpetually more and more peevish and all 
the poetry and patience and unerring instinct that inheres in the 
ancient, honest incubating hen yields to what may be aptly called, 
the quintessence of all that is incorrigible, contrary and persistently 
cussed. 

The commercial poultry man, the honest advocate of the old time 
system now feels the liveliest fear for all his eggs and enterprise and 
soon, in the forceful and emphatic speech of the greatest of living 
fanciers, he will proclaim "the most infernal luck with setting 
hens." 

Friends, I seriously question the possibility of thus congregating 
25 or 50 females of anykind in care of their young and yet preserve 
the peace. The whole atmosphere is soon full of electric envy and 
contagious discontent, and every effort to harmonize the harem im- 
poses still another element of disturbance and awakens a worse dis- 
cordant wickedness. 

I think no saint or sinner can daily feed and water and care for 25 
or 50 or 100 incubating hens without confronting this damaging dis- 
cord ; and, if unobserved an egg be broken, then all the rest, and all 
the nest, and the setting hen, must have a thorough cleansing, or, 
if perchance, a hen enjoys the luxury of lice, she strongly suspects 
her nearest neighbor happier than she, and so she quietly quits her 
habitat, starts out calling. She stays with each only long enough 
to scatter what she has to spare, and soon she Induces others to imi- 
tate her discontent, until the domestic tranquility of the whole colony 
is torn up, the eggs broken, and abandoned, and everything endang- 
ered. But, aside from all these, we pass on to the period of hatching 
and when the first young chicken chirps, then every hen inclines to 
quit her eggs; and so from experience, and controlling everything 
with consummate care, I found it possible to handle a few incubating 
hens confined together ; but the difficulty doubles with every acces- 
sion to the crowd. 



34 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

If you aim at anything less than hundreds and thousands of incu- 
bating hens your time and talent are involved and the corroding 
costs consumes your profits. 

I am aware that many good people still prefer this ancient method 
of poultry culture and complain that I have grown too graphic in 
painting the perfidy, in touching up the moral turpitude and ex- 
posing the perverse propensities and innate cussedness of the old 
setting hen ; but, be it understood, that I am not arguing against a 
few setting hens, but the sullen and studied perversity that I have 
hastely sketched applies more especially when working with great 
numbers, and vast congregated numbers, of course, is contemplated 
in commercial poultry culture, which we are now considering. 

The lice that must be looked after, the diseases that assail some, 
and the inclination of others to sit somewhere aside from the nest, 
the care and cost of, feeding and working and worrying and watching 
would wreck the hopes and health and happiness of any mortal. 
With 25 hens and 300 eggs the best result that I have ever had or 
known, under the most consumate care and skill, was less than 150 
chicks, and then from five to ten per cent of these were crushed or 
killed by the hens. 

Thus, under these several counts, we claim from the evidence ad- 
duced that we have honestly convicted old Biddy of cussedness, and 
general incompetency for wholesale incubation. We impeach her on 
the ground of cost and care, of deliberate mismanagement and 
murder. 

We come, in order, to our other and only count wherein we arraign 
the setting hen system for conduct even less reliable and cruelty 
more complete. Here, again, we shall prove her utterly unequal to 
the high demands of wholesale poultry culture. 

We have seen that congregated with, or contiguous to others she is 
especially nervous, quarrelsome and wickedly careless, and so incap- 
able of operating largely together. We submit that it is impractical 
to coop and so keep vast clutches of chicks confined. If liberated, 
all are impelled by mutual impulse to fight. The discords never 
end until the chicks are killed and scattered. If allowed to roam 
at large, the weather must be warm, and then, this commerce 
poorly pays, besides, even then, the early dew and damp des- 
troys one half the flock by conducing to every species of indiges- 
tion and disorder. Thus, unless confined, the chicks are drowned 



BTANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CULTUEE. 35 

by storms or die from cold and inclemencies. The quarrelsome 
hens require vast space to keep the peace ; but, suppose we have 
conquered and overcome all and carried this load of cost and 
care of four or five or seven weeks. The chicks have grown to 
fledging and so have come to the period most critical with the 
chick. The hens selected for this vast enterprise must be the best 
of layers and hence, at such an age of her chicks, and very often 
earlier, every civilized hen inclines again to ovulate and lay, her 
chicks are yet half fledged, but are soon forgotten by this gracious 
natural mother, this guileless, goodly hen. With rosy comb and 
cheerful song she seeks again the charms of " the cock that crows at 
early morn." No longer does the distressful chriping of her shiver- 
ing chicks awaken within her soft, maternal sympathy. Other aims 
and ends now animate her instinct and charms more chaste command 
her kindly care. Her suffering chicks seek everywhere the warmth 
and shelter she denies. They huddle in heaps hoping by mutual 
warmth to counteract " the cruel winds that visit them too roughly," 
but soon the sky is overcast, the storm pours forth its furies and the 
whole flock are drenched and drowned and die in every direction, un- 
less caught and sheltered and cared for, independent of the recreant 
hen ; ar\.d, so you summon that assistance in the end, that the scienti- 
fic process has proved by far the safest from the beginning. But, still, 
another count we ought to press against this ancient natural process. 
The trouble and cost and loss and wholesale death described but 
poorly pays the penalty of the old hen's administration. The grow- 
ing chickens thus deserted and exposed contract catarrh, and daily 
die of roup and irritative indigestion. Still others from these become 
affected until contageon kindles into a dreadful epidemic. Now, all 
this terrible train of direful difficulties must soon confront the poul- 
tryman tvho embarks extensively in this business under the auspices 
of the good old setting hen system. 

I have drawn this picture from the actual, unfortunate experience 
of myself and others and have honestly aimed to indicate the utter 
unreliabillity of a large number of hens, either as incubators or 
breeders. 

But, friends, what is the merciful avenue out of this dreadful 
dilemma? What is the surest relief from this wilderness of woe? Why, 
the labor saving machine, of course. The Incubator and the Brooder. 
The scientfic process of poultry culture must come to your relief. 



36 STANDAED AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

The Incubator is thus a blessing, born in the fullness of time. It re- 
presents one hundred hens, and is capable of hatching a thousand 
eggs at once, and it asks no greater care or cost while perfectly per- 
forming the function of incubating all these eggs than ten or fifteen 
hens. It never keeps you waiting for vernal spring to stimulate 
within its soul an instinct for incubation, It is always ready to 
receive all your eggs and leaves you free to consult the market and 
procure highest prices. It does the duty of the setting hen as per- 
fectly as the reaper gleans your harvest fields, the electric cable car- 
ries your message under the ocean and around the earth on the wings 
of thought, or, if you please, it accomplishes with greatest precision 
and without confusion the work of innumerable costly, awkward 
operatives. It never breaks an egg nor infests the nest with lice. It 
hatces every egg that any hen could hatch. It never quarrels, nor 
kills your chicks, nor exposes them to storms or other ills. It keeps 
your chicks under you own control and allows you to systematize 
their feed. It narrows your chances of accident down to the single 
source of adversity and allows it then to assail you only under the 
name of neglect of the two systems of poultry culture, compared and 
fairly formulated, we have, upon the one side, depraved animal 
instinct and on other educated human intelligence. 




STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 37 



CHAPTER V. 



INCUBATORS. USE OF ELECTRICITY. HOW IT OPEEATES. THE ESSENTIALS 
OP A MACHINE. THE BAIN COMMON SENSE INCUBATOR. HOT AIR MA- 
CHINES. OBJECTIONS TO BOTH. HOT "WATER MACHINES APPROVED. 
REASONS "WHY. THE MANURE MACHINES. THE THREE ESSENTIALS 
OF ALL MACHINES ARE HEAT, AIR AND MOISTURE PERFECTLY APPLIED 
BY THERMOSTAT, THAT IS ABSOLUTELY SELF REGULATING. THE 
INFLUENCES THAT AFFECT THE SUCCESS OF AN INCUBATOR. AUTHOR' S 
EXPERIENCE. IMPORTANCE OF GOOD EGGS. 

THE scientific system of poultry culture delegates no duties. 
It groups its great work, and disposes of all the petty 
details peculiar to the old process by placing every 
department under the auspices of exact science. For 
instance, every egg is operated upon alike, the temperature is uni- 
formly maintained at any desired degree. Moisture is supplied 
by evaporation and pure, warm air circulates through all the 
machine. There are no broken eggs to befoul the rest and 
no crushing the chicks while hatching. Every essential to the 
perfect incubation and hatching of eggs are heat and moisture 
properly applied. The modern Incubators are many of them perfect- 
ed to this end and under the unerring operation of electricty. 

Well, how can this subtile servant of science subserve the purposes 
of poultry culture ? First, and mainly, as a thermostat and messen- 
ger, by which I mean an instrument so adjusted within the egg chamber 
of an incubator that, obedient to the law of the expaasion of heat, 
and contraction from cold, the instrument, thus delicately devised, 
under the influence of a certain definite degree of heat expands a 
metalic bar until it touches an electrode and thus closing the cur- 
rent of an electric battery, carries a current of electric force along 
the wire which operates and opens a valve and allows the outside 
cooler air to enter and so lower the temperature of the egg chamber., 



38 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

When thus cooled down to the desired degree, the bar contracts and 
so separates the bar from its connection with the electrode, the cur- 
rent is thus suspended and the open valve closes, the cooling process 
then suspends and the work of warmth again resumes. This electric 
contrivanc operates like clockwork such perfect precision that it is 
impossible for the heat to run too high or the temperatue too low, in 
other words the temperature is thus reliably and automatically main- 
tained at any degree desired. But let us suppose your lamp goes out 
or furnishes insufficient heat then electric force is summoned to 
serve another end. A second battery similarly supplied, except, that 
instead of being adjusted to close the circuit by expansion of heat, 
this must be so adjusted that by contraction from cold the electrode 
is touched, the circuit is closed and the electric current sent along a 
wire which communicates with a bell in your office or residence near 
by, it may be, or elsewhere, anywhere, even many miles away. The 
ringing of this bell, then, is the distress call of the incubator sug- 
gesting higher temperature. 

This condition could occur only from defective lamps or insuffi- 
cient flame and sudden change to severe cold. 

Again, another source of danger with many machines is where the 
outside temperature is not cool enough to lower the heat in the egg 
chamber with the valve wide open. The lamp, of course, should 
then be lowered, but this implies care and so much assistance that 
the incubator can scarcely claim its action automatic, or completely 
self -regulating. All this, however, has been remedied ; first, by the 
electric bell which sounds the alarm alike for excessive heat or cold. 
Yet science was still unsatisfied and sought a more truly automatic 
plan and so recently perfected and pattented a process termed the 
electric trip, by which the lamp flame is regulated, raised, or lowered 
as high or lower temperature is required. The machines thus oper- 
ated are herein advertized and especially commended by reason of 
this additional and most highly practical and important considera- 
tion. An incubator thus equiped is equal to the eccentricities of all 
possible kinds and complexions of weather. If the weather turns 
severely cold the lamp flame is increased and when the temperature 
ascends to that degree at which the machine is adjusted then the 
flame is lowered : and so sensitive is the electric contrivance that 
operates the flame that the slightest change of temperature will move 
the lamp flame up or down, and, so the temperature over all 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CUIiTUKE. 39 

the eggs is perfectly preserved throughout the ordeal of incuba- 
tion. Still, this is not wholly essential to success and niany ex- 
cellent machines are successfully operated and the temperature con- 
trolled entirely by the valve. 

The principle difference between the leading incubators relates al- 
most entirely to the best mode of regulating the temperature, apply- 
ing the moisture, and supplying the air. These are, indeed, the es- 
sentials of incubation — the manner of turning the eggs and the me- 
chanical finish of the machine being of less actual importance. 

All manner of incubators have for several years been claiming 
superior excellence and inviting public patronage. The so-called 
"Common Sense Incubator" originated and advertised and im- 
posed upon the credoulus by Mr. Bain is, perhaps the worst of all, 
This machine consists of an air chamber over the eggs into which 
hot air enters from lamps and reflects the heat from the zinc above 
the eggs. The eggs rest upon some porous substance such as fine 
wire netting and the air tubes enter from below and approach the 
bottom of the egg tray. The purpose was ventilation, but as cold 
air does not ascend, nor hot air decend there is scarcely any ventila- 
tion ; and as the pan of water is placed beneath the eggs where scarce- 
ly any heat ever reaches it, there is scarcely any evaporation and, as 
there is no valve or thermostatic arrangement connected with this 
mechanical fraud, the temperature cannot be reliably regulated and 
so it is, possibly, the most unsafe and injurious article of the kind on 
the market. I think that all hot air machines are objectionable on 
the point of unequal distribution of temperature and, again, the 
great rapidity with which they cool off. The air chamber must have 
an escape tube or chimney to the lamp. The lamp transmits its heat 
into the air chamber above the eggs by means of tin pipes and so 
this chimney, or tube allows the heat to all escape so soon as the 
lamps are out or lowered ; and again, where the pipes enter the air 
chamber conveying the heat from the lamp, the chamber is unduly 
heated at that point. With a hot water machine, the whole body of 
water is heated ; retains the heat long after all the fire is put out, dis- 
tributes its heat over the whole surface just the same and so requires 
only the smallest amount of oil after the water is once warm and 
scarcely anything more in summer than a mere suggestion of heat. 
Heat has been more or less steadily maintained by filling a tank with 
hot water and, at stated intervals, drawing off and adding hot water 



40 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

and so maintaining the temperature throughout incubation. But 
this process is only practical in connection with an establishment 
where hot water is always convenient. We tested this plan thorough- 
ly after we had found out by experience the utter unreliability of the 
" common sense machine " and found the work of heating the water 
called for too much cost and care. In connection with a constant 
hot water supply it could be made a safe and sure method of incuba- 
tion ; but it could not be trusted to operate itself, the danger being in 
the direction of low temperature, as a thermostat could guard it 
from going too high. The heat must come from constant filling up 
with hot water and drawing off a certain amount of what has become 
lowered in temperature. 

Again, stable manure has been utilized to afford heat for incuba- 
tion, and as it is the slowest of all conductors it maintains its tem- 
perature longer than anything else, it will certainly supply the heat, 
if only rightly regulated. But here, too, the danger is in the direc- 
tion of unreliable temperature and its want of self-regulating action. 
Other objections suggest themselves and, yet, I have no doubt, that 
an ingenious farmer could so construct an apparatus that with the 
vast amount of material always at hand, and with more or 
less watching and care, could hatch by this process successfully. 
The heat supply could be depended upon if reliably regulated. 

But independent of any particular make of machine the question 
most pertinent to our purpose is, what must an incubator necessarily 
contain to meet completely the requirements of nature ? First : It 
must furnish and distribute heat reliably and to this end it must 
possess a thermostat of some kind that will easily and automatically 
and absolutely control the heat supply. This is imperative. The 
machine, in order to supersede the setting hen, must furnish the 
requisite temperature more reliable than she and without the assis- 
tance of somebody else. The time for " setting up " with a machine 
is past and, besides, watchers are mortals and sometimes go to sleep. 
The machine, then, must be absolutely self-regulatingin this regard, 
controlling its temperature with absolute and never-failing certain- 
ty. In order to do this, in my judgment, the regulator in order to 
control the heat must necessarily control the heat supply, otherwise, 
with more or less watching and care, we can only approximate the 
proper temperature all the time. 

Automatic, even, and reliable temperature, then, is the first es- 
sential. 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAX, POUL.TKY CUXTTJRE. 41 

The 2nd essential, and, without which, artificial incubation cannot 
succeed, is the perfect automatic application of moisture. The in- 
herent necessity of this 2nd essential will be considered and explain- 
ed under the caption of incubation further on in this work. 

And, 3rd, the incubator must afford the most thorough ventilation. 

These three essentials constitute the "sine qua won "of every in- 
cubator, for without these there is nothing to be expected from any 
machine. 

Of course, all the first class incubators are more or less perfect in 
these essential particulars ; but, to guard the beginner against the 
impositions that are practiced upon thousands, the purpose of this 
work has been to place before the reader some reliable data by which 
he may determine intelligently, the merit of any machine. 

After these considerations come those of less vital but often suf- 
ficient force to determine ones choice amongst which, are ease of 
action, durability, style of finish, capacity of air chamber, the man- 
ner of turning the eggs and the length of time the batteries last 
without attention. 

Machines are operated successfully without electric batteries, 
among these the New Axford Incubator, of Chicago, 111., enjoys a 
wide reputation. They were the first to publicly exhibit their Incu- 
bator in successful operation at the great fairs and poultry shows all 
over the continent and have made and merit a national reputation 
on their excellent machines. 

Mr. James Rankin's machine, the Monarch, is also remarkable 
for its successful record, being regulated both in its temperature and 
its lamp flame by a thermostat, which is operated by the expansion 
of its heated water. The full description and mode of managing 
each machine is always furnished on application and so need not 
encumber these pages. It seems only necessary here to say : do not 
expect any machine to hatch every egg, or even all that are fertile. 

Some time since we purchased a pen of five fowls that had been 
badly wintered and were suffering from scaly legs,, but soon began 
to lay. I set their eggs and, though fertile, they failed to hatch — al- 
most every chick died in the shell, or soon after. All seemed to suf- 
fer from utter debility and those that hatched soon after died and 
this, too under the ancient hen system. I applied mercurial oint- 
ment to their legs and soon destroyed the parassite which underlie 
and are causative of that disease. I applied sulphur and carbolic 



42 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

acid through their feathers and killed the lice and combining oil cake 
meal in their soft feed with meat and wheat and scalded, crushed 
corn ; in short, after keeping, like a christian should, for awhile, I 
got the birds back to constitutional good health and they began 
to lay. Every fertile egg then hatched and the chicks did well. 

Now, reader, suppose the eggs from these hens had been at first 
put into a " Perfect" c»-" Success Hatcher" a"Climax, " " Monarch" 
" Pacific " or " Eureka " Incubator ; how easily it would be thus to 
prejudice the prospects of the finest of machines. Therefore it seems 
pertinent in this place to consider, briefly, some of the influences 
that affect the success of scientific incubation. These relate, princi- 
pally, to the place and surroundings of your machine and to the qual- 
ity of the eggs. 

1st., Then, after securing a good incubator, set it up and operate it 
in a room that is large, well ventilated and light. Why ? Because 
the gas and emanation from the incubating and hatching eggs must 
not be confined in the room. A cellar is, therefore, utterly unfit for 
such work because it is usually dark and full of damp and heavy air 
and difficult to ventilate. I urge this from the dictates of science 
and common sense and experience. I think the reason above assign- 
ed are sufficient. It is better to build or rent a special house for 
hatching. After this the thing of first importance is the eggs. With- 
out the very finest, healthy, fertile eggs no system of incubation can 
ever hatch out healthy chickens. Pure, fresh and fertile eggs are in- 
deed the beginning and the end of everything that pertains to suc- 
cessful poultry culture. 

Kemember, then, the requisites for your incubator. 

The influences that surround your machine as regards pure air and 
light and comfortable quarters and, above all, consider the character 
of your eggs. 

The egg is, strictly speaking, a seed, and when fertile, like other 
seeds contains a germ or latent vital essence. The Incubator is sim- 
ply a well devised machine constructed especially to furnish the es- 
sential conditions which nature requires to awaken within the eggs, 
and so set in motion, those chemico -vital changes which eventuate 
in the development of the chick and the reproduction of its species. 
At this point it seems so pertinent that we emphasize the importayice 
of the egg and again affirm that eyery consideration in poultry cul- 
ture must relate to the actual condition of the egg and constitutional 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 43 

condition of the parent birds. Are these breeding birds too nearly 
related or long inbred ? Are they ill kept, affected with scaley legs 
and vermin ? Are they enfeebled from insufficient food, or other- 
wise unwell from over, or improper diet, and so suffering from in- 
digestion ? Are there too many females for the male from which 
the eggs are weakly fertilized, or are the males too old, or young? 
All these and other influences affect the eggs and so often, if fertilized 
at all, are worse than worthless as science assures us that, the prog- 
eny must represent the actual condition of the parent ivhen begotten. 
Therefore, if eggs be furnished under the adverse influence above 
suggested, the chicks, if able to survive the ordeal of incubation, 
will shortly after die from utter innervation. Eggs from ill-condi- 
tioned fowls scarcely ever completely hatch. The chicks have in- 
sufficient vital force to absorb the animal matter in the eggs and so 
break the dead and brittle shell, such, you know, is the ultimate act 
of incubation. 

But it requires strength of circulation which comes from healthy 
vital force. Go back, then, of the egg and learn the stock that sup- 
plies them. 

Again, as Incubators require at once hundreds of eggs and while 
this requisite quantity is accumulating, the first are kept so long as 
to utterly unfit them for incubation. 

Experience proves that eggs will hatch after being kept for weeks 
and after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, but the chicks are usually 
feeble and unprofitable. My importation of eggs from England has 
always proved a failure. 

Eggs subjected to incubation within a week are much to be pre- 
fered as furnishing a better hatch and stronger, healthier chicks. 

I am aiming to impress the great importance of using only the 
freshest and most reliable eggs — bear with me in the further sugges- 
tion of still another class of adverse influences, all relating to imper- 
fect eggs. 

An egg is never nearly spoiled. It is absolutely good or bad and 
spoiled and introduced for incubation will generate in this the foul- 
est putrefactive changes and so taint the entire atmosphere of the 
Incubator with the influence of debility and death. 

It is easy to immagine the influence of such dreadful odor on all 
the rest of the healthy eggs and yet, under the operation of any or 
all of these adverse influences that have often wrecked the result* 



44 STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTKY CULTUKE. 

the machine was a perfect one and operated right, yet, received all the 
blame from persons ivho were unacquainted ivith the real cause of 
failure. 

In many of my first experiments I used two thousand eggs each time 
unmindful of all the dangers to which I have adverted. I gathered 
my eggs at first from any and every source, from stores, from farm- 
ers, from peddlers and from every possible place, whence they were 
bred promiscuously incestuously, uncared for and ill-conditioned 
scantily fed and never sheltered, and, withal, a prey to vermin 
and every plague that infest the mongrel flock of the shiftless 
farmer. These eggs were further subjected to the cold inclemencies 
of spring and to careless handling and hauling and yet, under all 
the unfavorable circumstances just cited I hatched out a little over 
700 chicks and half as many died in the shell at various stages of de- 
velopment. 

The machine then used was a modified Common Sense, in which 
the heat was irregular, the air and moisture both poorly applied — all 
these unfavorable conditions considered, the hatch was not at all 
discouraging. I saw at once the defect in eggs and the Incubator, 
and inf ered what I have since proved, that, if thirty per cent, could 
be hatched with such imperfect arrangements over ninety per cent, 
could be secured by an Incubator that more perfectly applied the 
three essential conditions of incubation, and with perfect eggs. 

My vast horde of little chicks was thus unadvisably ushered upon 
my hands with insufficient accomodations for them in cold weather 
and so, of course, a greater portion died. Some 250 survived under 
every disadvantage. Other hatches continued to improve, as holes 
werebDi-ed through the machine, tin tubes inserted, and air allowed 
to enter, and, by direct application of moisture and observing stu- 
diously the necssities of the process, it soon become evident that a 
machine that could be relied upon to properly apply heat, air and 
moisture to its eggs would revolutionize the poultry industry. And 
these machines now do this duty perfectly. 

The Brooder then used was worse than the machine. A top heat 
tank, warmed by lamps reflecting heat from a zinc roof down on the 
heads of the harmless little chicks, soon sufflcated over 500, and im- 
pressed the f ollcwing facts : The brain of anything is the depot, or 
supreme source of vital force, its blood is unlike that of all the rest 
of the organs being pure and perfect and finished before being sent 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTEY CULTUBE. 45 

to the brain. It therefore, tolerates the fiercest cold and never is 
congested. But heat affects the brain adversely ; it relaxes its large 
blood vessels and partially, or completely deadens their elastic re- 
sistance to over fullness and so is induced congestion, over-fullness, 
pressure upon the brain, dizziness and death. 

The body, on the contrary, is one vast chemical labratory for car. 
rying forward the processes of digestion, for converting meat and 
bread into blood. These digestive processes being chemical in char- 
acter must be subjected to higher temperature than the brain. From 
these data we proceed to study the proper application of heat to the 
chick. 

What is afforded for our guidance from the mother hen ? Her 
chicks envolope their bodies m her feathers and all around peep out 
for air. They press their bodies close against the hen and so the di- 
gestive system, and not the head, is especially affected by the vital 
heat of the hen. The top heat process allows of limited aeration ; the 
rarified air and gas ascend to be again returned and born and breath- 
ed again until the twofold, unhealthy influences derange and destroy 
the chick. Such was my experience and, such are my views to the 
philosophy of the fatality. 

Instructed by this experience, I next tried bottom heat after the 
following plan. Take a box, say six feet wide, and twenty feet long, 
by eight inches deep. Dig out the floor same size and let down the 
box on a level with the rest of the floor. Cover box and floor, all 
four inches deep, with dry sand and then convey the heat from 
lamps into the ends of the buried box by tin pipes. Put a tin tube 
in centre for a chimney to your lamps, and soon, the entire floor is 
warm. The chicks set down in the warm sand and the heat ascends, 
and so warms the whole room so that, if you have bottom heat, you 
soon have heat everywhere. If you sit down upon a warm rock and 
clothe the feet warm, the coldest weather on earth will not freeze you, 
but, apply this heat to the head and fail to extra clothe the feet and 
trunk and the effect, of course, will be fatal. 

Make a plank house, cover and line it with tared felt and with the 
underground brooder or heater, the only remaining necessity will be 
a ventilator, which should be operated by a thermostat and valve 
such as register and regulate the temperature in the Incubators, and 
thus you can go to bed and rest assured that the chicks are comforta- 
ble under the right and regulated supply of warmth and fresh air. 



16 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY JOUBNAL. 

The principle, of course, being the same as utilized in the Incubator. 
Well, my chicks did vastly better under the operation of this crude 
bottom heat contrivance, which suggested at once this better method, 
and ushered in a flood of facts and philosophy in its support. An 
elaborate article might be made most interesting and instructive, 
which considered in detail, the effect of heat by those two processes 
of application upon the brain and the delicate digestive apparatus 
of the chick. Suffice, for the present, with a single suggestion. The 
pertinent thought then impressed me that the digestive system of 
early infancy is always properly protected with flannel covering, with 
( special care, while the head remains uncovered. The birds, in a 
state of nature, line their nest with wool and feathers for the es- 
pecial protection of the lower body of the delicate little birds, while 
the heads remain uncovered. The Indians of the wild west under- 
stand the essential conditions of health and to this end they dig a pit 
and build their fire, and, wrapped in their robes, lie around in a cir- 
cle with feet to the fire. In all cases the head is uncovered. We, 
therefore, conclude that when lines of philosophy coverge from the 
realms of science and nature from every direction and all lead 
up to a fact that the fact is founded in nature's laws and must be 
essential.- 

We conclude from all the foregoing, and, from experience that the 
application of heat from above upon the head of a bird is unnatural 
and often fatal and not sustained by science, nor, as we have seen, 
by analogy in the heat supplied by the hovering hen. 

We are not inclined to be captious on this question, but simply 
submit our experience, our conclusions and, as usual, our reasons. 
If others can contrive some method to modify the evil influence of 
heat reflected on the head we shall be glad to greet you. But the bot- 
tom heat brooder, we fully believe, will be the great hovering hen of 
the future. After thus much of digression in the direction of sug- 
gesting the utter folly in hatching out chicks until fully fixed to care 
for their comfort, we resume the recital of our experience with scien- 
tific incubation. 

After the improved Common Sense contrivance we had built an- 
other 500 egg hot air Incubator ventillated by tin pipes passing per- 
pendicular up and down along the sides of the machine and turning 
at right angles and entering the egg chamber below the eggs above 
the moisture pans. The whole space was partioned into four de- 



STAND ABD AND COMMEKCIAL POUXTBY CULTURE, il 

partments, each holding 125 eggs all heated from the one zinc roof, 
the purpose of division thus into separate drawers being to put in 
125 eggs eveiy week. The machine had a lamp at each corner and a 
central tube entering at the top as a chimney for all the lamps. But 
the machine was defective ; first, it did not evaporate sufficient mois- 
ture and ; second, it heated and cooled too suddenly, it had no regu- 
lator and so required watching Still it hatched sixty per cent, of all 
fertile eggs. 

I concluded now to use setting hens in connection with the Incu- 
bator and so I gathered them in great numbers and set them on china 
eggs and when the chicks were hatched, put them under the hens at 
night. This seemed plausible, but, I soon found it impossible to put 
many hens in one house on account of constant quarreling and kill- 
ing the chicks. A hen will gladly accept and care for the chicks 
after setting ten or twelve days as soon as the maternal instinct is 
awakened by a short period of setting, but, she is jealous of the pres- 
ence of others and so it is only possible to keep the peace by putting 
the broods apart which of course requires so much house room that 
the hen system becomes too expensive and too full of care. I put 
them apart and in spring let them out, but in from 4 to 6 weeks the 
hens began to sing and seek their nests and the little chicks were 
soon left to die of cold and inclement weather. My experience is 
that hens that are worth their feed as egg producers are unfit for 
mothers, because they wean their chickens and resume the office of 
egg production before the chicks are fledged, the chicks become 
chilled and die of the many forms of indigestion. I have sought to 
remedy this by fix'ing a place into which the chicks alone could enter 
and eat and so starve the hens with a view to retard their laying, but 
while this will succeed it is full of care and cruelty. It will be found 
therefore impossible to prosecute a system of poultry culture suffi- 
ciently large to justify our time where hens are relied upon to per- 
form an }j other pa rt than the production of the eggs. This part of her 
work is susceptible of assistance because physiological science has 
afforded us that physical condition of habit and health in which the 
hen furnishes the best and largest number of eggs. She is simply 
a vital machine whose great office work is to lay eggs and this she 
cannot help doing, if, by careful feed and care her organism is kept 
in tha correct condition. We have elsewhere noted that half fed and 
ill-conditioned stock cannot furnish healthy eggs and so we see that 



48 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

science enters more extensively into poultry culture than many have 
supposed. Like any other great and growing industry its work must 
be brought at once under the auspices of classified knowledge. 
Everything, to succeed, must be well organized. The hen cannot 
perform two parts, much less three. She cannot lay eggs, set three 
weeks and carry her brood ten weeks and be of much service. During 
those sixteen weeks, under the old system, the most she could possi- 
bly yield would be an average of six to ten chicks during the four 
weeks. 

Under the scientific system, where the labor is alloted, and the 
two parts that tax her powers the most are assigned to the machine, 
she may be made to furnish eighty eggs and so contribute over fifty 
chicks. 

Thus the hen is kept continually active in the work for which science 
has improved and better shaped her, whereas science has only des- 
troyed her capacity for the other duties that the new system devolves 
upon the machines. 

In short, the hen thus improved for egg production is thereby ut- 
terly unfitted for anything else. She is educated to that end just as 
jersey cows are bred for butter and short horns for beef. Each, in its 
sphere, is excellent, but worthless elsewhere, and so, poultry culture 
must take its place in the great family of business industries with all 
its operations organized and each department of its labor specially 
alloted. Thus only can any great business be carried on and poultry 
is no exception. If the enterprise be left unorganized, if no account 
be kept of loss and cost and profit, if each hen be allowed to lay and 
set and carry her brood and thus, from 5 to 10 be fed and cared for 
and kept to do the work of one, when, controled by sense and science 
as we have seen, then surely poultry culture is entitled to no confi- 
dence in the great fraternity of organized business industries, and, 
so, will continue to double her distance in the rear, or more than 
double her importation of eggs with each succeeding decade. 

Such, indeed, is its record under the ancient system of unallotted 
labor of letting the hen lay eggs and then stop to hatch three weeks 
and then to hover six or eight or ten. Under such a systen, and so 
long people are incredulous as to the actual net profit of a hen. 

Well, our experience demonstrated the fact that the old hen was 
infinitely inferior as a brooder than as an incubator of eggs. 

Remember all the time we are dealing with large numbers, our 



STANDABD AND COilMEECIAX, POULTBY CULTUBE. 49 

subject is poultry culture and we are considering the question from 
the stand point of a business, and from experience. We found her 
jealous, offended by the society about her, and so, unsafe to set. We 
found she abandoned her nest, broke her eggs, tore up the tran- 
quility of the whole setting colony, and killed the chicks. 

Such, her history as a setter in society. 

As a brooder she was all this and, in addition, eat more food than 
her chicks and of a kind more especially prescribed for the chicks, 
which, with great numbers became doubly expensive. 

The further expense must be met in one of two shapes: Either the 
hen must have large room, or else the chicks were killed in quarrels. 
But those that survived all these and ever attained their liberty were 
enticed to trail through dew and, must be caught up at every shower 
of rain. But the worst of all, these hens abandoned their brood 
too soon and let them die of catarrh, or roup, or some other form of 
indigestion and so, again, we were driven back to the brooder 
thoroughly convinced that successful poultry culture, on an exten- 
sive scale, can only succeed by the scientific system. To this, then, 
we shall now confine our consideration. 




50 STANDARD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 



CHAPTER VI. 



authob's experience with incubatobs continued, success hatches, 
monabch, climax, eubeka, pebfect hatches. lamp tbip 
machines. how to eeed. how to select a laying hen. lay- 
ing stbains. the use of the standabd pbescbiption eob lice, 
eeatheb eating. wateb. shade. how to cube setting hens, 
scientific incubation. how to determine the bight tempeb- 
atube fob an incubatob. how to maintain it. the hen's and 
the human vital heat compabed. how to build a cheap and 
good poultby house. 



OUR next incubator was a 400 " Success Hatcher," using, 
also, that companies brooder for very young chicks and 
the heater house brooder later on, with the most gratify- 
ing success. My faith in this and all the self-regulating 
Incubators is absolute. 

I determined to confine my work exclusively to standard poultry 
culture on a large scale and so selected the several varieties I still 
breed, and, filling my machine with these fresh and fine fertile eggs I 
was delighted with a hatch of 94 chicks from 100 fertile eggs of which 
82 lived and did well. I have since succeeded equally well and others 
hare done better by giving the work more time and attention. 

The Success Katcher is a thermostatic, hot-water, self -regulated 
incubator of all sizes, and maintains its temperature and furnishes 
heat, air and moisture automatically and admirably. It is now being 
further improved by adding a circuit electric battery which operates 
the valve and at the same time depresses the lamp flame, and when 
the temperature is reduced, to the desired degree, the valve closes 
and the flame is again increased. 

This same device done in another way is peculiar to the "Eureka," 
the "Perfect Hatcher," the "Climax," apd "Monarch," and prob- 
able to others. This " Lamp Trip " is certainly a triumph of science 



STANDARD AND COMMELCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 51 

and makes the machine not only more reliable, but " a thing of 
beauty and a joy forever." 

The hot water circulates entirely around the egg chamber and be- 
neath the evaporating pans of water, thus, warming and evaporating 
the water beneath the eggs. We think no patient, intelligent person 
can possibly fail to successfully operate either of the Incubators 
herein advertised, because we have admitted only those we can cheer- 
fully recommend. But, remember a brooder is just as essential a 
thing in this method of poultry culture as an incubator and without 
which the incubator, you must see, on a moment's reflection, can be 
of no earthly use to you because the chicks that you hatch must be 
cared for promptly and, so the warm bottom heatbrooder should await 
the work of the incubator. Further on in this work we shall offer our 
idea of several plans for poultry houses and brooders which, we 
think, most admirably answer every end. 

We come now to insist on the only proper function of the hen. 

Do not call on them for anything but eggs, but study and develope 
her highest possibilities in this direction. 

Experience has shown that egg production is a natural, physi- 
ological function and may be modified, increased or retarded by 
such influences as increase the condition, or unfavorably affect the 
health of the hen. 

Scientific research has approximately placed the ultimatum, of a 
hen's life work, in egg production, at from six to eight hundred eggs. 

In a state of nature, or under the old system of poultry culture, 
the hen would consumate this life labor in about twelve years; 
whereas, under the modern improved method of comfortable hous- 
ing, feed and care her general, physiological habit is so exalted that 
she lays the larger half, or about 450 eggs, in less than three years. 
The hen in the hands of the modern scientific poultryman, is simply 
an animate machine. Her physical condition is diagnosed and her 
egg production is stimulated or retarded at will, precisly as the milk 
flow is increased, or diminished in a cow. In a state of health, a 
hen can no more help laying than feeling well under proper feed. 
This fact came to me through unfortunate experience. I then raised 
my fancy Buffs by the setting hen system. I fed all liberally and I 
always found that within forty days my delightful old biddy resumed 
ovulation and left the chicks to combat the cold charities of spring- 
time. 



52 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTEY CUXTUBE. 

I then selected the oldest hens as less liable to resnnie their laying 
and finaly, I found that good or bad diet was at the bottom of the 
whole business and determined the activity of egg production. 

I demonstrated the accuracy of this conclusion from the negative 
side by building an inclosure into which only the chicks could enter 
and eat and, so by starving the hen, or putting her on lighter diet, 
delayed her ovulation and she stayed with her chicks. 

Again, there is such a thing as strains in all kinds of stock where- 
in the greatest difference of merit exist. The famous Stoke Pogis 
and Coomasse strains of Jersy cattle command increditable prices 
because of a characteristic certainty to transmit the very highest 
milk and butter merit to all their offspring. 

The Felch, and Autocrat and Duke of York strains of Light Brahma, 
the "Orange" and "Connor" and "Old Gold" strains of Buff 
Cochins, the Essex and other strains of Plymouth Bocks have 
national reputation as egg producers. 

A strain, then, of anything is only properly so-called, when by 
careful selection and culture there has been firmly fixed upon it some 
clearly defined characteristic, and so by selection and carefully feed- 
ing only the very best laying hens, a strain of superior excellence as 
egg producers, can certainly be built up which, of course, is of the 
very first importance, either in fancy, or commercial poultry culture. 

Now, while experience with any animal affords the surest test of 
intrinsic merit, yet certain external features are often suggestive of 
superior high qualities even in a hen. 

First, excellence in anything is strongly suggested in faultless 
symmetry. Give me a hen that balances well in all the standard 
sections and so approximates symmetrical perfection, and I will 
select her with confidence as a valuable layer. 

Again, medium sized hens are almost always to be preferred as 
layers and thus we come practically upon the inestimable worth of 
the American Standard of Excellence affecting for good the most 
vital part of commercial poultry culture. Thus, too, is proved the wis- 
dom in modifying its provision in respect to excessive weight. 

Like that book of books, that higher standard rule that rises above 
all earthly wisdom and entrenches its worth and truth in the univer- 
sal experience of every day life, so the good sense and real necessity 
of such a standard system for raising fowls, for any and every use, 
is practically attested in the experience of every intelligent student 



STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBT CULTURE. 53 

of poultry culture. 

The standard size and symmetry then, afford the most reliable 
guide in the selecting of a genuine, good laying hen. If you have 
not got a standard, purchase one from any poultry editor or breeder 
and thus build up a strain of laying hens for abundance of fine fertile 
eggs from such stock as we have suggested, affords the best possible 
foundation for successful incubation and vigorous chicks. 

We can not too strongly insist upon the necessity of all this pre- 
paration if we decide to embark in this business as a profession. Of 
course, we can begin at once and work up to the position herein pre- 
scribed, but the sooner we secure our own stock and thus control our 
own egg supply the better by far will be our success ; for, remember 
that the issue must largely relate to the quantity and quality of the 
eggs. To this end we have carefully considered and assented to the 
practical necessity of what has been said. 

We comprehend the vast advantage of the scientific system, we per- 
ceive the impossibility of proceeding and pushing business as we 
intend with the cumbrous, quarelsome hens as hatchers, and so we 
have selected from the best our self -regulating Incubators and the 
best brooders. 

We have purchased a standard, have carefully selected and mated 
our stock, and now before we enter on the work of incubation, let us 
stop and carefully consider what we have on hands and how we shall 
shelter and feed and care for our stock. 

We know no substantial house that could be built cheaper than the 
gable-roofed, or double roofed box house ; that is, pine plank nailed 
upright to sill and plate, the cracks striped and the entire inside sur- 
face and roof covered with tarred felt. Such a house can be built 
any size and will be thoroughly dry and sufficiently warm. Let the 
house be wide enough, say 24 feet, to admit a 4 feet hallway through 
the center and leaving the pens 10 feet square on either side. Let 
these pens open into runs 10 feet wide and as long as convenient on 
either side of the building, fenced and partitioned with lath. Such 
quarters are only suggested, the cost must differ with location and 
price of material and labor at different places. 

The more essential consideration now confronts us, what shall we 
feed? We answer everything. But, in winter, our poultry provender 
is necessarily so limited that a certain general dietary must form our 
staple food. For the morning meal, therefore, give equal parts of 



54 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

corn meal, ground oats and wheat bran thoroughly scalded, adding 
pepper and salt, and fed warm at six o'clock, a. m. At ten o'clock 
hang a head of cabbage in each pen. At one o'clock feed scalded 
wheat and at six p. m. feed dry crushed corn. Vary the morning 
meal with corn bread in which there is plenty of lard and black 
pepper, and feed meat cooked in some shape once or twice per week. 
Beef heads chopped up into chunks and boiled with potatoes make 
the very best and cheapest food. Bone meal or ground oyster 
shell should be kept before the fowls and often put into the soft food. 

Lice should be looked after every two or three weeks and when 
found apply through the fluff of each fowl a small handful of the 
following mixture: 

Flour of sulpher 10 pounds . fluid carbolic acid 3 drachms ; 
mix thoroughly with a stick in a box, say 12 by 18 inches long, with a 
strap across the top for a handle. Take each fowl that is suspected, 
or infested with vermin by the legs, rest the breast or crop upon the 
floor and gently sift the carbonized sulpher all through the fluff. The 
fowl when liberated will nutter and so send into every crack and 
crevice tin's perfect specific against all manner of poultry vermin and 
this, we assure you, is no small triumph ; for, otherwise, your whole 
premises would be permeated with this plague which, creeping and 
crawling through all the feathers and over the delicate skin, would 
allow no sleep, would so disturb the nervous system as to induce an 
irritative indigestion and so wreck the whole enterprise. 

Again, we say, look after the lice and as they are closely connected 
with filth, keep everything clean. 

Filth and vermin, let me further insist, are fruitful sources of other 
ills. They debilitate and break down the powers of vital insistence and 
so expose the fowls to all other infirmities. 

Feed your stock liberally and yet with judgment, not to fatten them 
but full to satisfy them. 

Feather eating and egg eating never will occurr when fowls are al- 
lowed liberal diet. The cure for that habit came to me from watch- 
ing a neighbor's hens pluck all the feathers from the male. They afce 
the entire feather to get at the soft end, yet fresh in animal matter. 

Supply oyster shell and bone meal and animal diet and hens will 
never begin these habits and will quit them if commenced. 

These seemingly small matters are mentioned only because the au- 
thor's purpose is to be practical and of actual service to all who seek 



STANDARD AND COMMEECIAJL POULTBY CDIiTTDTE. 55 

advice on such subjects from the experience of others. The influence 
of small things cannot be better illustrated than in the scourges of 
lice among laying hens. Like the coral insect operating silently and 
unseen away down under the ocean, they are unnoticed and unknown 
until, at length, they rear high up to the crested wave their dreadful 
reef that wrecks the commerce of the seas. And so, the ruin wrought 
by lice and all such seemingly small things, if unobserved and left 
to prey upon the flock of the poultryman. 

The medicated dust box containing carbolized sulpher, is here sug- 
gested as the easiest and safest specific. 

Water, fowls like everything else demand fresh pure cold water ; 
not freezingly cold, but pure, fresh, and often. 

In summer and in hottest weather every four hours and only 
enough, the rest turned out so that they may not drink the water 
when warm, which induces diarrhoea. Wash out the vessels every 
time you water. All this seems small but must be somebody's regu- 
lar business, unless your yard be built in a circle around a fountain, 
or along a running stream. But the fresh water supjoly is an abso- 
lute necessity. 

Shade, also, and green grass are essential to the health and comfort 
of fowls in confinement, shade especially.' 

When hens lay out their litter of from 10 to 18 eggs they usually de- 
cide to set, and then comes a crisis between science and the setting 
hen. Of course, the hen must succumb. 

To effectually blot out her ideas of incubation in the shortest pos- 
sible time the hen should be suspended. Take a lath frame one foot 
or eighteen inches square, tie a rope to the four corners and swing it 
up in the house with the hen inside. Supply her with feed and water 
and the air coming under her and her suspended movable habitation 
soon dissuades her from entering seriously on such a maternal en- 
terprise, Meantime, feed her freely, the purpose being to put her 
physical system in the finest possible condition to augment her 
health to highest habit and so force her down from her artificial alti 
tude again to honest, steady business. 

We now enter upon the important process of scientific incubation, 
feeling that herein will soon be demonstrated the wisdom of all our 
carefull preparatory work. We now desire to know precisely the 
proper heat at which to gauge our Iucubator and so we take our reg- 
istered fever thermometer and passing it up the bowel of the hen 



56 STANDARD AND COMMEECIAL POULTBY CULTURE. 

we find that at the beginning the vital temperature of a setting hen 
is one hundred and six degress. The vital temperature of a human 
being in health is 98% degrees and so we here derive much funda- 
mental and practical information. 

Let us stop to learn the meaning of this fact and ask why the fowl's 
temperature is eight degrees above our own ? The purpose appears 
to point out in this higher temperature of the fowl an especial fitness 
for the work of incubation and, so, when left to herself, in a state of 
nature, the ordeal is wrought out in such perfection as only can we 
safely imitate in our scientific operations ; for, thus situated only can 
the hen accomplish natural incubation. 

A further providential purpose, doubtless, in this higher normal 
heat regarded the comfort and protection of the fowl from inclem- 
encies and cold. 

Again we seek to measure as before the actual heat beneath the hen 
at the beginning of her incubation, for then, her vital heat is highest ; 
first, that she may longer starve and stay upon her eggs, and ; second, 
because the eggs demand this higher heat to awaken within them the 
vital force, or principle. We find by actual test that, placed beneath 
the recent setting hen, her temperature will not be far from 103 de- 
grees, and, to this we adjust our thermostat as follows : We will fill 
our Incubator with eggs and place a reliable theromomter on top and 
carefully watch the influence of the heat until the mercury rises thus, 
under the influence of heat to measure 103 degrees, we then advance 
the thermal screw to-wards the metalic bar until it touches, and so, 
at 103 degrees the electric current is closed, the valve is opened and 
the lamp flame is lowered and so held by the magnet until the heat 
in the egg chamber declines, then the bar contracts away from con- 
tact with the screw, the current is broken, the valve closes and the 
lamp flame again turned up, and so the temperature demanded by 
nature is thus derived, and thus guarded and governed, with perfect 
precision under the unerring operation of electric control. Thus 
can the first great essential to scientific incubation, the proper tem- 
perature, be found at first and reliably maintained throughout the or- 
deal of incubation. 

There is no triumph of modern scientific truth better sustained by 
the test of practical experience than the application of electricity to 
governing the temperature of the incubator. It requires no special 
training, no education in the operation of electrical apparatus to un- 



STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POTTLTBY CULTTJBE. 57 

derstand and operate any of these self -regulating Incubators, be- 
cause they do everything themselves but fill the lamps and turn the 
eggs, and some do turn the eggs. 

But what practical lesson may we deduce from passing the ther- 
mometer into the interior and finding there th^ actual, vital temper- 
ature of the hen to be 106 degrees ? Since we find her external heat 
to be much less and so allow the latter to guide our operations ? We 
learn from this the highest vital temperature of the hen, that 106 de- 
grees is the very highest heat that can be applied to eggs ; since, be- 
yond the highest vital temperature appliable to anything their off- 
spring will suffer. Hence from this internal test we find that 106 de- 
grees to be the highest heat to which we may subject the incubating 
eggs, and even this vital heat of the hen is full two degrees too high 
for the hen's offspring, or eggs, precisely as the weather in August, 
measuring 98 1-2 degrees of heat, the normal vital temperature of 
adult human life is much too high for human health. Thus the les- 
son that, though the temperature may run up to 106, or 108, or even 
110 degrees for a very short time, yet, if even 106 degrees be long 
sustained in the Incubator the chicks will nearly all die in the egg, or 
soon after hatching. The proper temperature, therefore, for incu- 
bation is 103 degrees, as demonstrated and drawn by actual test from 
the operations of nature going on within the hen. 

But let us dwell here for a moment for a few observations. After 
the hen has kept her nest for about ten days her comb turns pale, her 
weight and general robust health declines and she gradually loses her 
vital heat on through all the rest of incubation until we find, on 
actual test, at the end of three weeks from her first entering upon 
this duty with a vital temperature of 106 degrees that she now meas- 
ures by the same thermal test a vital temperature of 102 de- 
grees. But, the incubating eggs do not suffer from this constant 
loss of vital heat in the starving setting hen ; but, rather this 
is a merciful source of safety to the embryo chicks because 
no sooner is the vital germ imbued with active life within 
the egg than the circulation of blood sets up within the shell 
and so the vital changes thus engendered within the incubat- 
ing eggs develope a heat within the egg which more than balances 
the vital warmth that, as we saw, has left the hen. Thus it is that the 
hen may leave her nest and the incubating birds may wander wide 
in search of food. The circulating blood and inherent heat within 



58 STANDARD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

the egg is almost self-sustaining after the first two weeks. 

But, let us carry this observation with us and note the operation of 
this physiological process upon the temperature of hundreds of eggs 
within the Incubator. This source of inherent heat within many 
incubating eggs would seem, at first, to fatally affect their tempera- 
ture, or bring the pertinancy of the question within the scope of our 
inquiry into this subject. But, here the incubating eggs are just as 
safe from over heat as if beneath the falling temperature of the hen ; 
because, it will be observed, that the thermostat is within the egg 
chamber and adjusted to reliably hold the temperature from going 
higher than 103 degrees; it affects this thermal ventilator just the 
same, whether the heat be generated from the lamp, or emanate from 
the eggs, or both. Still, whenever the temperature ascends to 103 
degrees, the electric current is called into action, the lamp flame is 
lowered and the valve llies open, the outside air enters and the heat 
escapes and this operation holds down the lamp heat entirely if nec- 
essary, and uses only so much of lamp heat, which, added to what is 
given off by the eggs, amount in the whole to 103 degrees : and so 
the scientific process is purely self-regulating and absolutely reliable 
with this style of Incubators. 

We have now set and tested and find our Incubator holds its 
heat for several days safely at 103 degrees. We introduce the 
eggs and let them entirely alone for two days, during which time we 
neither turn nor air nor in any way disturb the eggs ; because, up to 
this point and even later, the hen never leaves her nest nor turns nor 
uncovers her eggs. Why ? Because it will be found, by breaking 
the eggs, that it requires 48 hours of constant heat at from 102 to 103 
degrees to imbue with active life the vital principle within the egg. 
Then, with unaided eye we can plainly see the heart beat and round 
about this little beating atom we observe the mesh-work of mesen- 
teric arteries and veins — the brain and spinal cord and the crude out- 
line of the little living creature coming out from the domain of the 
chemical into the vital world. 

The subtile changes are so exceedingly delicate up to this point 
where the circulationcan be seen and is actually established, that the 
instinct of the hen adapts her conduct to the eggs necessities, and so 
she hovers and heats them perfectly still. The question is here sug- 
gested, how long may eggs be subjected to 103 degrees of heat before 
those chernico-vital changes start, and hence would destroy the egg 



STANDARD AND COMMEKCIAL POL^TR* CULTURE. 59 

from hatching, if withdrawn from the heat before the function of 
circulation and visible vital force is affected in the eggs ? 

We think it unsafe to ship or disturb eggs that have been subjected 
to incubating heat over six or eight hours, for we may clearly see the 
enlarged and yellow areolar ring around the vital spot, the vitelis, 
after the first 12 hours of incubation. Hence, the necessity of the 
precept enjoined to keep the eggs perfectly quiet for two or three 
days from the beginning of subjecting them to incubating heat. 

It is difficult to definitely determine the precise period when the 
chemical changes will first beset in operation in the egg under heat, but 
by bringing up the point may assist, somewhat, in saving many eggs 
from rotting that have been subjected to heat and cooled too soon. 

It may be suggested, too, that eggs that are not hatched daily may 
be thus started by a hen setting on the eggs overnight. All such eggs 
are certain to rot, if set or kept. 

Well we have stopped to note this important practical observation: 
but we have had our eggs three days and nights in the Incubator sub- 
jected to 103 degrees of heat. We break an egg — we find upon one 
side a small congested speck and bending around, a little quivering 
point we trace the outline of the embryo bird. The little beating 
speck is the birds heart. 

We now conclude it safe to turn the eggs gently once a day and put 
in our pans of luke warm water. Why ? Because at this period the 
hen leaves her nest for food. Why ? Because the vital changes go- 
ing on in the egg keep up for a time the internal heat to which we 
have elsewhere refered and now we observe the hen to lift her body 
and with her beak to move her eggs about. Why ? Because to 
equalize her heat to all her eggs and to afford equal air to all ; and, 
further, by changing the egg's position prevents adhereing to the 
side of the shell. Of this latter I am uncertain, since eggs have 
hatched that have never been turned. The experiment is quite easily 
made with separate drawers of an Incubator. 

After the first three days the moisture pans becomes an essential. 
Why? Because the high heat and consequent dry air of the Incuba- 
tor demands moisture and will extract it from any source. 

There becomes, therefore, a strong affinity for the moisture with- 
in the eggs. 

To remedy this robbing the egg of its moisture the evaporation 
of water within the egg chamber keeps the air sufficiently humid and 



60 STANDABD AND OOMMEECIAL POUIiTET CULTURE. 

the egg is not thus injuriously affected. 

Experience, alone, has demonstrated the right relation between a 
given amount of heat, a given amount of water for evaporation, and 
the successful hatching of the egg. Usually, from a quart to three 
pints of water in 24 hours at 103 degrees temperature will satisfy na- 
ture's demand for atmospheric humidity in a drawer of one hundred 
eggs. 

It is of prime necessity, indeed, our second great essential to success- 
ful incubation, that sufficient moisture be supplied. Why? Because 
nutritional changes of embryonic life are actively operative in the 
egg and these changes there, and elsewhere in all possible forms of 
life, whether in animal or vegetable life, all changes, must be effect- 
ed through flu id media. They must be carried on in a fluid state. 
Water actually constitutes over 90 per cent, of everything that lives* 
There can be no change and therefore, no vital heat, and therefore, 
no life when the water of the object is reduced below 90 per cent, of 
the whole physical organism. Whether in the sap of the trees and 
plants, or the circulating blood of animal life, water affects all the 
atomic changes that underlie the life force ; hence its necessity 
here where the life forces are operating in hundreds of eggs and where 
a rapid circulation in each egg is absorbing from the atmosphere the 
greatest amount of moisture it can contain. 

But, we have seen the incubating heat of the hen is 103 degrees. 
The inquiry is pertinent, whence is supplied the requisite amount of 
moisture for this temperature when the hen hatches the eggs ? We 
answer the high heat and active circulation going on in the egg be- 
neath her, both being greater than her own, absorbs the moisture 
from the hen ; hence her rapid reduction in weight beyond what is 
due to loss of food. 

But certainly, we do not insist that the same amount of moisture 
for the same degree of heat, is demanded alike from the hen and from 
the Incubator ; the reason being that the oily substance derived from 
the body of the hen, which, may be observed, renders her eggs sleek 
and shining, and very much unlike those subjected to Incubator heat 
for the same length of time. 

This oily principle imparted by the hen closes, in part, the pores ; 
but not enough to injure the egg, and so prevents the evaporation 
and loss of the water within the egg. 

So the hen insures sufficient moisture to the egg while incubating, 



STANDAKD AND COMMEBCIAL POUXTBY. CULTUBE. 61 

by partly supplying moisture from her own body, and partly, by 
preventing the evaporation of the egg's moisture by the oily perspir- 
ation she imparts to it. 

The Incubator insures the necessary moisture by free evaporation 
of water from the moisture pans, thus rendering the air humid and 
so enabling the egg to absorb its requisite supply, and, also prevent- 
ing the air from drawing any further moisture from the egg. 

Both methods succeed in doing the same thing by somewhat dif- 
ferent means ; both fully supply the egg with the second great essen- 
tial, which is moisture. 

Thus, we insert the moisture pans the third day, or as soon as the 
vital changes begin to influence the internal upward heat and organ- 
ization of the egg into higher form and structure. 

We now continue to turn the eggs once daily until ten days and, 
thereafter, on throughout the period, two or three times a day. 
After the first week, or on the 6th or 7th day the whole of the eggs 
should be tested ; the purpose being to rid the Incubator of all infer- 
tile eggs — first because they can be cooked as food for chicks, and 
second, subjected to high heat and moisture they often decay and 
emit an odor that injures all the other eggs. For such purpose se- 
cure or make a tester, which is a conical tube six inches long, made 
of stiff rubber cloth, large enough at the base to admit an egg ; place 
the egg in this end, hold it between the finger and thumb of the left 
hand, the palm of the hand upward, so that the hand will not be in 
front of the egg, then apply the small end of the test tube to the eye, 
before a strong light, or the sun, and if the egg be fresh, or infertile, 
it will be clear and pink in appearance. If examined thus on the 
third day an expert can detect a small floculus and red tint rapidly 
rise to the top of the egg on being turned over, this indicates the 
early changes in the egg when the vital functions first manifest 
themselves to the unaided eye ; but then it is too soon and unsafe to 
make the test. 

But tested on the 6th or 8th day we find a dark and well defined 
spot somewhat bike a spider ; then, if the egg be broken we find the 
little embryo snugly invested in a membraneous sack that incloses 
the embryo and the substance of the egg, the enlarged vessels every- 
where forming a perfect network through which are carried on, con- 
tinually, the most active nutritional changes ; this circulating foetal 
blood propelled in rapid and rich supply to every part by the throb- 



62 STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POUDTBY JOUBNAL. 

bing, beating little heart. 

All this may be seen on breaking a fertile incubating egg at 8 days, 
or even earlier. 

Then the head and eyes and all the parts of the chick are plainly 
perceptible. 

If how the egg be mottled with numerous specks and intervening 
clear pink color, then the egg is usually old, or otherwise unfit ; but 
always infertile and can be safely broken. 

If there is a large, dark body with light allowed to surround it 
every where and fluid be seen that seems to shake on motion some- 
thing like thick fluid then the chick is dead. Then, too, the egg is 
usually motled. But, if the dark body after 12 or 15 days shall fill 
the egg, except one small clear spot at the larger end, which we rec- 
ognize as the air chamber — the whole egg, besides be dark and full 
then the chick is usually alive. 

Thus, the tester enables us at an early date to separate the dead from 
the living with almost unerring certainty and much more certainly 
when such fresh and perfect eggs are used as these preceeding pages 
have prescribed. 

Pardon me, if we again insist that the quality of the eggs decides 
the excellency of the incubation, all things else being right. 

The test should be made on the 6th and again on the 12th days ; 
first, for the infertile eggs, and, next, for those which were then 
doubtful and for dead chicks. 

If at any stage there exudes a fluid, thick and sticky, through the 
shell, then the smell will indicate, also, that the chick is dead, or the 
egg decomposed and it must at once be removed. 

Thus the test tube, the exudation from the egg, and the odcr will 
enable you to detect and separate the good from the bad. 

Thus we have advanced upon the progress of the setting hen, her 
rotten eggs often fill with gas and burst befouling all, and ruining 
the whole enterprise of her incubation. 

After the 14th day the chicks have grown to almost fill the egg. The 
changes that have so rapidly been wrought are akin to the marvel- 
ous. 



8TANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY CULTUBE. C3 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE INFLUENCE OF HEAT UPON THE EGG, CONTINUED. THE NECESSITY OF 
MOISTUBE. ITS ACTION. HOW SUPPLIED BY THE HEN AND BY THE 
INCUBATOB. PUBE AIB THE THIBD ESSENTIAL TO INCUBATION. PUBE 
AIB. ITS COMPOSITION. HOW IT ACTS. THE INTEBIOB AND EXTEB- 
IOE OF AN INCUBATING EGG. HOW THE CHICK IS FINALLY HATCHED. 
WHEN. ITS PECULIABITY AS TO SIZE AND NECESSITIES. THE 
BBOODEE. 

AT the close of the first 12 hours the egg exposed to incu- 
bating heat reveals an areolar spot upon the yolk of 
paler yellow hue, again 12 hours and this enlarges and so 
continues until at 48 hours from entering under incubat- 
ing heat, congestion, or rather hyperasmia is seen around a central 
vital spot. Faster and fuller these small surrounding arteries extend 
outward and over the yolk until within a week the whole yolk 
becomes a bed of crossing, coursing blood vessels, all carrying 
continually outward and back the blood that receives its impulse 
from the little central, oscillating organ called the heart. Behind 
this little vital pump somewhere presides a power, we know not 
what, but call it ''vital force." This vital current, for the cir- 
culating blood is actually imbued with the potent principle of life 
and hence a vital current, absorbs nutrition as it passes through 
the surrounding pabulum ; and so this vital phenomenon, fixed and 
founded in the yolk of the egg, draws on the albumen everywhere 
within, and thence builds, from its base in the yolk, the bird's physi- 
cal fabric by process of absorption of all the animal matter within 
the egg. This process requires three weeks. The animal matter all 
absorbed and the chick full developed from this substance, becomes 
the ultimatum of incubation. Then it only remains for the chick to 
make its exit from the egg, there being only left the brittle lime, the 
moisture all absorbed, at the point of sharpest contact the shell 



64 STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY CTJLTUBE. 

crumbles and the chick comes out ; such is incubation. 

But during this interesting ordeal the fluid state must be maintain- 
ed of all this matter, thus absorbed from the interior of the egg, by 
the circulating channels of the living, growing chick ; and so evapor- 
ation is insufficient to meet the constantly increasing demand for 
moisture. Aiter the first ten days of incubation, when the first, 
third and thinner fluid has been absorbed and left the rest more 
dense and difficult to absorb, because less liquid, the nutritional 
changes are much less certain and, hence, the death during incuba- 
tion is largely in the last stage. Hence, we see that moisture is truly 
an essential, and now must be supplied in vastly greater quantity, 
than is possible by evaporation and so, after the first ten days, nature 
demands that the eggs be sprinkled. Moisture applied to the exter- 
ior, or outer surf ace of the egg is absorbed through the porous shell 
by the vital heat and circulation that are going on within. If there- 
fore, eggs at this stage be freely moistened and exposed to the air, 
the absorption may soon be seen ; except when the chick is dead and 
then the moisture will remain on the shell and the educated, or ex- 
perienced touch, or feeling of the eggs will determine at once, by the 
presence or absence of vital heat, whether the chick be dead in the 
shell. 

We have now gone pretty thoroughly through the first two essentials 
to incubation ; namely, heat and moisture, and have not only 
affirmed their prime necessity as a fact, but have gone under 
the fact to show the philosophy, or the clear common sense that sup- 
ports it. 

We now proceed to the third and last essential, which is pure air. 
It is apparent to every person that fresh, pure air is essential to ex- 
istence ; but, all are not intimately acquainted with the actual opera- 
tion of this life giving agent. 

Pure air is composed in largest part of nitrogen and oxygen ; the 
nitrogen being over three-fourths greater in the composition of air 
than oxygen and serves only to dilute and render the oxygen less 
dense and distructive. Oxygen thus combined with other gaseous 
elements of air is the grateful and essential generator of all the deli- 
cate chemical changes that evolve, or furnish the vital force. When 
food is taken and transformed from the solid to the liquid state, and 
in its onward passage converted into a milky, murky mass of 
chyle and chyme, and, coming on eventually to the lungs, it there re- 



STAND AED AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CI^TURE. 

ceives this vital air, this element of life, oxygen, by which its color 
and essential character are changed, and thence it starts, carrying in 
its corpuscles this vital principle to every atom, which it influences 
in the perpetual life labor of incessent waste and repair. When an 
atom is oxidized, it generates that force that furnishes it, from the 
blood, a rich rebuilding of other atoms and so oxygen is everywhere 
the essential promoter of those destructive and constructive tissue 
changes upon which, alone, the life force depends. 

What is true of the human organization is equally applicable to 
the operations going on in the incubating egg. These nutritional 
changes, here so actively operative are possible only in the presence 
and by the power of oxygen. Combined with nearly eighty parts of 
a neutral agent, termed nitrogen, it constitutes the atmospheric air ; 
and thus reduced in energy, it then excites, as we have seen, those 
healthful changes that are, indeed, the vital essence of all nutrition 
and vital phenomena and force, such the influence of atmospheric 
air ; such the essential influence of vital change of tissue atoms, or 
oxidation. 

In other combinations oxygen becomes more active and causes 
combustion and so destroys by burning heat and, still, by combin- 
ing eight-nineths of oxygen with one-nineth of hydrogen we have 
water ; hence the life giving principle of moisture and pure water in 
stimulating those vital changes that constitute what is called nutri- 
tion. 

Oxygen, be it remembered, in pure air and water must be present 
as the promoter of vital action everywhere that it exists. Hsnce its 
essential service in awakening and sustaining life in the ircumting 
eggs. 

Thus, we may sum up upon this point as follows : The vital germ 
containing the life principle, being imparted by the male, and, from 
electric affinity finding its lodgement in the yolk of the egg, where it 
lies inert until such a time as the egg is subjected to those conditions 
that induce a change in the vital element from a state of latency 
into active life. The germination ; the areolar spot upon the yolk at 
12 hours ; the congestion around the vitellus at 36 hours ; the beating 
of the heart at the end of the third day ; the floculus then percepti- 
bly margined with crimson fringe and floating upward in the egg as 
viewed through the test tube : the dark, spider-like spot, with ves- 
sels running out over the interior of the egg at the end of the first 



66 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

week ; the enlargement of this dark spot, and the appearance of 
light in the air chamber, or large end of the egg : the increase of heat 
in the egg ; the entire egg becoming dark, excepting at the air 
chamber ; the light all around the egg with vibrating thick fluid in- 
dicating the death of the chick, also the mottled egg, indicating in- 
fertility : the clear pink, unclouded egg, denoting afresh or iufertile 
egg, and the mottled egg with clear pink spots denoting no dark 
body, indicating an old infertile egg, and mottled with a dark body 
suggests a dead chick. 

So much for the interior of an incubating egg as seen upon break- 
ing the eggs at various stages, every day, and viewed through the 
test tube, before the sun, or in the dark, before a strong light. 

The external evidence of incubating eggs are : A cold egg, twelfth 
day, denotes absence of circulation within, and hence, no life ; an 
egg that does not absorb moisture after the fourteenth day, when 
dampened, denotes no circulation and, therefore, no life: an odor 
emanating from an egg, or a vicid exudation from an egg, with an 
odor or not, is proof of decomposition, going on within, and these 
poisons forced out through the pores by the expansion of the gas in 
the egg under heat and moisture. 

If [ am dwelling too definitely on all these details of incuba- 
tion, my apology must be. I am following in succession, every step 
of nature, not as learned from books : but as seen by me during a 
series of years, in the incubation of thousand of eggs. 

Finally, the twentieth day the imprisoned chick has drawn its last 
nutrition from the interior of die egg, its vital heat and circulating 
blood have absorbed every particle of the substance of the egg into 
the chick and used it as food, until there now remains only the vigor- 
ous little animal, anxious to get out, and nervous from finding no 
longer any nourishment within the egg. All the moisture, all the 
animal matter being taken up by the chick, there only remains the 
brittle shell of lime, punctured by thousands of pores that allways 
break first at the bigger end of the egg. Why ? Because there the 
air chamber has kept the inside fluid from the shell by a special 
membrane and so the egg is always less moist and more brittle at 
the bister end. There, too, the head of the little chick is turned for 
air, and so there the relatively sharper portion of the chick, the beak 
breaks through the rotten wall. When the beak breaks through and 
the chicks find fresh air it presses in that direction and soon breaks 



STANDABD AND COMMELCIAL POUXTBT CTJLTUEE. 67 

away from all feeble xesistence and so ends the period of its incuba- 
tion. 

Reader, I hope yon have fully understood the ordeal of incubation; 
for the process of developement from the first inception of life in 
the egg, on and on, to the end of incubation, is a perfect por- 
traiture of the processes of your own. and all other animal exis- 
tence. 

The chick is hatched and independent of the egg. In other words, 
under the influence of special essential conditions the egg has been 
vitalized and transformed from a state of inertia, or latency into a 
living creature. The egg being thus transformed the chick now 
claims our special consideration. 

When first hatched a chick will actually oocupy more space and 
look much larger than when three or four days old. The yolk, though 
all absorbed from the egg, is yet within the chick undigested and 
thus affords food for the chick for about thirty hours. During this 
period we notice the setting hen, if left entirely alone, to sit in 
quietude, hovering her brood and never offering them food. Her 
unerring instinct impresses her with the importance of keeping them 
warm. This proves to be an actual necessity to the safety of the 
chick, because the yolk of the mother egg is yet within the chick 
under the process of absorption and complete digestion and so this 
delicate vital function must be consummated under elevated tem- 
perature. Hence the habit of the hen in hovering her young almost 
exclusively for several days. 

The first necessity, therefore, for the newly hatched chicks is not 
food, but a dry and warm place, well ventilated and protected from 
draughts or chill or dampness. Why ? Because, if food be forced 
upon a delicate digestive organ, already doing the full measure of 
its duty, the result must be indigestion or disease. This we often see 
in little chicks a few days old. and this error, of too early feeding, 
has injured the Incubator. 

Again, the chicks must not get chilled for the first few days. Why ? 
Because cold checks chemical change, and such chemical or vital 
changes as this absorbing and digesting yolk of a very young chick 
being thus chilled and blighted, the result must be indigestion and 
disease and death of the chick. This is all important and the source 
of so much prejudice because of failure to raise the chicks. Look 
to the brooder. 



68 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

From all the foregoing we think it will be conceded that a dry and 
warm place to put the little chicks immediately after removal from 
the Incubator is the only safe and sensible proceedure. 

A brooder, therefore, becomes as much of a necessity as an Incu- 
bator and yet the brooder is always almost overlooked and ignored 
by the majority of those who buy an Incubator. 

Friends, reflect a moment, what possible use can you have for an 
Incubator, but to hatch chickens ? and without a brooder how shall 
you protect and preserve the temperature proper for swarms of lit- 
chicks. The brooder, then, becomes a pertinent consideration, in 
this connection, and must be introduced to public acquaintance in 
every text book or article that assumes to advocate the scientific 
system of poultry culture. 

We have elsewhere in these pages refered to this subject, and ad- 
vocated what we believe to be the best, most practicle and cheapest 
of all brooders yet introduced to the public. Let us enlarge upon the 
idea and present several plans. 

First : the inverted box brooder 20 by 6, or 8 ft. let down in the 
ground floor, heated by lamps that enter the box by tin pipes at the 
ends, with a tin pipe in the center for chimney for all the lamps. 
Cover the top of the box with sand, all on a level with the floor, and 
soon the ivhole sand floor is warm, and the radiated and ascending 
heat warms the whole house. Thus we combine a building and a 
brooder. 

The building may be made of upright pine plank lined with tared 
felt, and roofed with same, and so rendered very dry and warm. On 
either side, on a level with the floor, small doors or holes may be 
made, through which the chicks may be allowed the liberty of the 
outside inclosed run about the house ; when chilled, they may return 
in upon the warm floor. Thus, practically, you have all the advant- 
ages of the bottom heat brooder, at trifling cost, and on a very large 
scale, without the inconvenience of having a brooder in your way. 
Thus, too, it is impossible for chicks to pile up and crush each 
other. 

Building and brooder No. 2 : Procure a small steam engine, from 
which cast iron pipes shall run the full length of the building, and 
return parallel with, and two feet from the first, and so on, until the 
whole width of the floor is covered, the last returning pipe to re-enter 
the boiler below the exit of the first. Then cover the pipes with 



STANDARD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 69 

dirt and cement and sand over all and thus the engine will propell 
the hot water through all the pipe and thoroughly warm every part 
of the floor building. The heat may be gauged, either in the engine 
or where it is distributed in the building. The Perfect Hatcher Com- 
pany, Elmira, N. Y.. advertises to do that work. Also the Success 
Hatcher Co., Lancaster, Pa. 

The engine will cost $400 or $500, but the extent of its services 
may thus be sketched. It possesses foree enough to carry water 
everywhere even hundreds of feet. It will enable you to attach rub- 
ber hose and when the house needs cleaning, remove everything 
down to the cement floor, which should slope each way from the cen- 
ter, and then wash and scour the floor with hot (carbolized) water. 
It will enable you to cook your feed by scalding water or steam, and 
so save half your feed which would pay for the machine each year. 
It would furnish the motor power to shell your corn and to grind all 
your feed and so you could fatten pigs, poultry and ducks with all 
ease, in great numbers and very cheap. * The engine furnishing the 
motor power for shelling and grinding, for supplying the hot water, 
for sending it in rubber pipes to any place to steam or scald 
and so soften the food, besides furnishing heat for chicken nur- 
sery. 

Remember first, that cooked, or steamed, or softened food, when 
thus ground and mixed as we shall soon prescribe, is the best possi- 
ble preventive of disease and the foundation idea in successful poul- 
try culture. Why ? Because ground, softened food fattens fast and 
induces rapid growth. Why ? Because over half the labor of digest- 
ing is done by thus grinding and softening. Chicks or pigs or ducks 
cannot get too fat while growing and so this form of food warm and 
ground and softened imposes no labor on the digestive organs, and 
thus the young stock may be pushed rapidly forward, built up in 
physical vigor above disease. Thus one half the feed bill may be 
saved and the young stock strengthened against the' adverse 
iufraence of inclement and cold changes and from all the indi- 
gestions. 

Aside from the brooder, as thus connected with the building, 
I may safely commend the different make that are advertised in the 
pages of this publication. They are all excellent within their limits 
and for all who cultivate less than six or seven hundred chicks are all- 
sufficient. 



70 STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY CULTUEE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FOOD. FOOD IN ITS EELATION TO LIFE. FOOD IN ITS EELATION TO 
HEALTH. FOOD IN ITS EELATION TO DISEASE. FOOD ANALIZED. 
FOOD ADEOITELY DIEECTED BY SCIENCE. FOOD IN ITS EELATION TO 
FAT AND WHAT FAT IMPLIES. TABLE GIVING ANALYZING DIFFEBENT 
GEAINS, AND GIVING THEIB SPECIAL AND EELATTVE VALUE AS DIET 
FOB VAEIOUS DUTIES. FOBMULABY OF FEED. FEED FOB LITTLE 
CHICKS EELATIVE VALUE OF DEY AND COOKED FEED. POULTBY 
FOODS OB TONICS. 



!!# 



IE now confront one of the most important, one of the 
essential subjects of poultry culture. It underlies every- 
thing, it is the power that impells all other forms of force, 
it furnishes blood and brain and bone and feather and 
flesh and is, indeed, the power behind the throne of vital force itself. 
We refer, of course, to food. 

A chapter, then, demands its proper place in this connection 
devoted to poultry diet. 

If the foregoing be true, then, we think, all will concur that there 
is scarcely a subject within the wide range of poultry culture so really 
important as poultry diet. 

We shall offer in this connection a few suggestions upon intelligent 
scientific feeding. The excellencies of every thing are first induced 
by fine feeding. The marvelous milk and butter yield of Jersey and 
Holstein cows were first secured through formidable bills of feeding 
until these characteristics became established and were transmitted, 
and thus, the so called " strains of pure blood " are built up, all hav- 
ing their origin in special diet directed to accomplish the end in 
view ; but all emanating from fine food, selected diet, elegant nutri- 
tion, which ever is and always was, and ever will be, at the beginning 
and at the bottom of everything available. Even religion will thus 
more perfectly bud and bloom and ripen her precious fruit, for man 



STANDARD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 71 

is a monster of hideous mein, a savage beast, and utterly incapable 
of keeping the least of all the commandments on an empty stomach 

Science has analized the brain and found it to contain phosphorus 
and, where this element abounded most, the intellectual faculties 
were relatively enlarged, and, so in dementia or melancholia, or con- 
ditions that suggested impairment of the brain power, phosphorus 
was suggested, and soon established its claims to confidence as a 
remedial agent. 

Again, by analizing the waste material of active brain workers, it 
was found that phosphorus was found in overly relative proportion 
to the rest of the waste material after specially prolonged or arduous 
intellectual effort, and, so science began the search for phosphorized 
food and found it largest in fish and oysters and eggs ; and so these 
articles are universally conceded to contain the higher intellectional 
elements of brain food. 

Again, nitrogen is largely found in muscular tissue and so science 
has sought for such food as was richest in this essential for furnish- 
ing the greatest amount of muscle and found it largest in wheat and 
lean meat. 

Thus, special kinds of food, like special drugs are elective in their 
action, operating upon and affecting certain parts of the system ex- 
clusively. Thus, epicac affects the stomach; aloes, the bowels-; 
nitre, the kidneys, and ; opium, the brain and, therefore, it becomes 
self-evident to all that diet, like drugs, may be adroitly directed ; 
and, under the auspices of sense and science may be so employed as 
to serve the poultryman's purpose whether that be to fatten for 
market, to develope the production of eggs, or to stimulate the gen- 
eral developement of his growing chicks. 

Let us illustrate : We feed our stock for various purposes ; our 
chicks we aim to rapidly develope in every direction. We feed our 
breeding birds in the direction of the fibrous and the muscular, to 
the end that they may be active and vigorous and so best fitted to 
sustain the heavy demands continually made upon the constitution 
that must freely furnish the richest nutriment in hard shelled eggs ; 
and, again, we feed to fatten our fowls, so fast and fully, that they 
may not lay and so the sooner be ready for market. The same nu- 
trition will not answer alL these ends, and so, we tax our acquaintance 
with Poultry Dietetics, and according to the indications as afforded 
us by the researches and dictum of science, so we differently direct 



72 STANDABD AND COMMEBCTAL P0ULTEY CULTUBE. 

diet, as we differently direct drugs, to do a certain, definite duty. 

Suppose, in fuller illustration, that we feed our breeding stock on 
corn, combined in fullest measure with everything else they will eat. 
The result must be an over production of fat ; and, with such condi- 
tion, an end to all activity and ovulation, because science and ex- 
perience, both, assign to corn the highest potency in producing fat. 

Fat is not an indication of special strength in any physical func- 
tion. The Hon. S. S. Cox declared in Congress that, "fat overlay- 
ing abdominal muscles, never produced a Disraeli nor a Gladstone. rt 

Excessive fat, qualifies a bird or animal only for one thing and 
that is to die. It indicates, in breeding stock, the strongest evidence 
of injudicious feeding. Here, then, is the most important problem 
that the breeder can confront, since color and characteristics, gcod 
or bad qualities, health or disease, life or death, stand in direct rela- 
tion to what and how we feed. All are affected, and doomed, in one 
direction or the other, by diet, 

Let us remember that perfect digestion, that is, where there is a 
proper balance between the waste and the repair and the elimina- 
tion going on in a living organism, when digestion is thus perfect, 
we have a condition of physiological ease, which is health. But, 
when this desired state does not obtain, and we have indigestion 
from any cause, as from improper food, or from sudden changes of 
temperature, then this indigestion implies a condition of physiologi- 
cal disease, which is, more or less, in the direction of death. 

To demonstrate the foregoing facts and to furnish a reliable index 
to intelligent feeding we respectfully offer the dictum of seience on 
this subject in the subjoined table which expresses the comparative 
dietetic value in each direction and the chemical composition of dif- 
ferent grains in building up the animal organism. With such facts 
before us we have only then to comprehend what condition we require 
in our stock to best promote our purpose, and then select such diet 
as the following formula suggests as best adapted to induce that de- 
sired condition. 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY OUDTCTBE. 73 

Chemical Composition of Cereal Food. 



KIND 
OF GRAIN. 


sis 

o ~ o 


of. 


'Hi 

■§sf 


a 


id 

9* 


erals, Bone 
cing matter. 




fcf.3g 






3 fl 


^2 




fe a 




ft 






a 


WHEAT. 


18.00 


66.80 


7.50 


2.10 


3.10 


2.50 


BYE. 


12.50 


64.65 


14.90 


2.25 


3.10 


2.60 


BABLEY. 


12.96 


66.43 


10.00 


2.76 


4.75 


3.10 


OATS. 


14.36 


60.59 


9.25 


5.50 


7.06 


3.25 


INDIAN CORN 


12.50 


67.55 


4.00 


8.80 


5.90 


1.25 


BICE. 


7.50 


88.65 


1.00 


0.80 


1.10 


0.90 



From the above, chemical science assures us that wheat is richer in 
nitrogenous material, or flesh and muscle matter than any other 
grain by about 30 per cent. The minerals, such as lime, soda and 
potassa obtain largest in oats and barley, while corn and rice repre- 
sent most prominently the oil and fat producing diet. Hence the 
scientific deductions that accord with all experience, teach that young 
chicks should first be feed on wheaten bread and later with fine 
cracked wheat. Why ? Because such is by far the most nourishing 
diet. What then, is the condition of the chick ? The yolk of the 
mother egg, which represents 30.7 per cent of fat, is yet not fully ab- 
sorbed and digested. It, therefore, needs no fat producing food, 
rather under such conditions, the tender life most needs such food 
as will soonest make it muscle and strength and flesh instead of fat. 
When eggs are fed avoid the yolk ; but the white of eggs and well- 
drained milk curd and fine chopped, lean meat and white bread and 
fine crushed wheat all belonging to that class of elegant nutrition 
which represents the rich, nitrogenous or flesh and muscle food and 
suited especially where ever physical strength and endurance are de- 
manded. But. shall we not feed corn to young chicks in fine, crack- 
ed form, in bread or in the form of dough ? We answer in the name 



74 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POTJLTBV CULTURE. 

of science, No ! not for one full week. Why ? Because, as we have 
seen, the chick when hatched is over fat and weak. "We therefore, 
seek such diet as shall add no further fat, but rather flesh and muscle 
and bone and strength. 

Well, what does our formulated table furnish ? First, it suggests 
that wheat will give the flesh and muscle and strength ; and second, 
that oats and barley will make three times more bone than com. 
See table. These, then, of course, should first be fed. 

To formulate the proper diet for chickens under two weeks old 
we suggest the following : Crushed wheat 20 pounds : ground oats 
15 pounds ; ground barley 10 pounds : flour of ground oyster shell 1-4 
pound. Mix thoroughly with hot sweet milk, or hot water or bake 
into bread and feed warm and often, but spareingly, only so much 
each time that all will be eaten. This, with well-drained milk, curd 
aud coarsely crushed wheat should form the main diet for the first 
two weeks. Cooked milk is the most elegant diet at two or three 
weeks old. 

All this is especially relished by the chicks because it is precisely 
what they need. There is no guess work about this business ; 
but actual science, which is only another name for classified common 
sense. 

Chicks kept dry and warm and thus fed, grow fast and strong and 
need no vile hen to hurry them out and about, into dew and damp- 
ness and death. 

This much for the first two weeks, after which add to the foregoing 
formula ; 20 pounds of corn meal, and either steam or scald and so 
soften the whole mass before feeding. Young chicks for the first six 
weeks should be fed about as often as a babe the first six months, 
which is every three hours. 

After three weeks, dry cracked corn and wheat may be given freely, 
especially in the afternoon. I mean rather to say, dry feed should 
not be freely fed in the morning, I am not certain that it is better 
to feed dry feed at night. The universal idea seems to be that a 
chicken must be occupied all night is digesting dry food, so that it 
shall be kept secure and safe from the evil effects of hunger and cold. 
Hence, they say, fill the crop with dry grain, which is longer and 
more difficult to digest. 

But, honest reader, is that correct ? Do we advise such diet for 
little children on going to bed ? Do you select for them onions, and 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 75 

pickled pigs feet, and hash, and cabbage, mince pies and fried pork ? 
In short, are not the laws of digestion and of physiological life oper- 
ative to a similar end in all animal organisms ? Do you believe a 
three year old child would rest and grow and do as well on a stomach 
full of dried apples, or popcorn, on retiring at night as if fed on 
milk and bread, or milk and mush ? 

Then, which idea is correct, to feed a three months old chick on 
going to roost, until his crop is distended with dry wheat or dry corn, 
or fill him equally full of the same material, crushed and softened 
by hot water and so made easy for his little organism to digest ? In 
both cases the same nutrition is afforded, but in the one way his 
digestive organs are worked all night and so are robbed of their 
proper rest, while, under the ground food-diet the most difficult part 
of digestion is done when the food is swallowed. The nutritional 
changes go silently and easily on, the child or chick is soon sweetly 
unconscious and covered all over in the quiet and healthful embrace 
of refreshing sleep. 

I would gladly enlarge and press the general adoption of the ground 
food idea for chicks at night, only I have advocated the other side so 
blindly and so long that it seemed consistent here only to place the 
two plans in comparison and ask you to think for yourself on every- 
thing and be original, even in poultry culture. 

Well, what does the foregoing table suggest as the most suitable 
diet for breeding birds ? We answer that wheat, in various forms 
and combinations, make the most excellent diet for laying hens. It 
may be fed alternately as bran and shorts, scalded and fed stiff and 
warm with pepper and salt, or steamed wheat, or combined with 
other food, as in out first formula, it may be either scalded, or baked 
into bread. 

Whole wheat and crushed corn at noon, and steamed corn and 
wheat at night, 

Be careful not to get the stock to fat, especially asiatic stock, meat, 
in the form of boiled beef heads, cooked tender, with potatoes three 
times per week, will make hens lay by putting their system and 
health in finest possible condition. Any other method of stimulat- 
ing egg production is ruinous. 

The various nostrums known and sold as poultry food are good 
to the extent that they increase the fowl's general health. Such is 
the great merit of " The American Poultry Food." 



76 STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POUETEY CULTUEE. 

The best poultry food for stimulating egg production is elegant 
nutrition rightly prescribed and cleanliness, warmth and perfect 
comfort of fowls. 

Ground oyster shell kept dry and where the fowls can find it and 
sulphur supplied in soft food a few times per week and the flour of 
ground oyster shell and ground black pepper and oil cake meal and 
charcoal, or what is better, parched corn ground coarse and mixed 
into feed, make up the most thorough of all appetizers and poultry 
tonics that we have ever yet tried during the laying and molting sea- 
sons, when the greatest possible draft is made upon the system, and 
when there usually comes, in consequence, those nervous prostrations, 
those green discharges, those irritative indigestions which constitute 
the essence of chicken cholera. What shall we do for these condi- 
tions, I answer kill all the lice, keep everything clean, feed flax seed, 
or oil cake meal, and black pepper, and flour of oyster shell, and 
sulpher, and charred corn meal, in steamed and crushed food. Put 
oil cake in fresh water and give three or four times a day, throw out 
one hour after, so they may not drink the water, either too cold or 
warm. Hare plenty of shade and green food and, thus do not let the 
cholera come. 

Unless these precautions be considered and heeded, unless the 
poultry breeder perfectly and practically understands that there are 
certain seasons of the- year more rife with these relentless poultry 
ravages than others, and at the same time is fully informed why this 
is so, these insiduous and subtle scourges will certainly fasten theii 
footing in the midst of your flock. 




STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY CULTUBE. 



CHAPTER IX. 



CHICKEN CHOLEEA. WHEN IT MAT BE EXPECTED. THE CONDITIONS THAT 
PBEDISPOSE TO IT. THE SEASONS WHY THOSE CONDITIONS GTVE EIS1 
TO CHOLEEA. SCIENTIFICALLY AND FULLY EXPLAINED. THE CAUSES 
OF CHOLEBA. WHAT CHOLEEA ACTUALLY IS. THE OEIGIN. HOW II 
SPEEADS. ITS CABEEE. WHEN AND HOW TO TEEAT IT. CASES BE- 
POBTED. METHODS OB TBEATMENTr FALSE NOTIONS OF CHOLEEA 
EXPOSED. POPULAR PBESCBIPTIONS CBITICISED FBOM A SCIENTIFIC 
STANDPOINT. 



CHICKEN cholera, though it may come at any time, is pecu- 
liarly prone to present itself during the hot summer and 
autumn seasons, Why ? Because, then, those conditions 
out of which it is born, are always present. Then fowls 
are exhausted by ovulation, then they begin their annual molt, the 
new feathers as they come out deplete most heavily the life forces of 
the already enfeebled fowl. The new appearing plumage counter or 
draw aivay the nervous influence that digestion demands to enable it 
to be perfectly performed. 

The food must now be softened and ground and rendered easily 
digestible or else it proves a source of digestive disturbance, irritation 
is induced, the crop fills up with mucous fluid, the fowl becomes 
feeble, the constructive changes are checked in the system and hence 
nature no longer calls up through the palate for further food, and 
hence the " fowl has no appetite." Every other element of diges- 
tion has stopped its function. Vital force is no longer generated. 
Distructive changes, and constant discharges continue to exhaust the 
fowl, and soon its flickering forces fail. All its nutritional opera- 
tions are over, the fluids pour out of the relaxed system, and death 
results from exhaustive indigestion. 

The causes that first induces this vital degradation : that first dis- 
turb the healthful harmony of digestive changes are, first : excessive 



78 STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTKY CHLTUBE. 

heat; second : moulting ; third: warm or impure water; fourth: 
an irritation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and boivelsfrom 
depression of over work, or over heat, or the drawing off of the vital 
forces by fledging plumage, or sudden exposure to dampness or cold; 
and fifth : indigestible food, or food not especially easy of digestion 
and suitable to this condition of the digestive system. 

Vermin are also propagated most plentifully during these hot 
months, and their influence in breaking down the health and vital 
forces through nervousness and indigestion has already been suffi- 
ciently set forth in these pages. . 

So much for the conditions that are causative of cholera. 

Other causative inflrences come direct from the disease itself, such 
as putrid discharges, and these are properly a different set of influ- 
ences and are commonly called *' infections," when the fatal influ- 
ence is operative immediately among the fowls, or " contagious " 
when caught up in the humid, heavy atmosphere of night, or damp 
weather, and wafted over fences and fields and through other flocks, 
fomenting and thus finding its way among the fowls of whole sec- 
tions ; it rises at length to the dignity of a general epidemic and de- 
fies all doctoring. 

Under the auspices of such wholesale evil every effort is often im- 
potent : every drug is worse than wasted. It is like the dreadful 
freshet that is fed from ten thousand fountains, or like the terrific 
cyclone that generates electric life by attrition with all it touches un- 
til at length, it pours an awful avalanche of endless, electric, eddy- 
ing fury, into the very center and soul of the fearful storm. Such 
are evil agencies when once in motion ; when once they are widened 
in their work, and broken beyond all bounds ; such is poultry indi- 
gestion when once it emanates in a home of disordered hygiene, 
when first it springs from famine and filth and assisted by all the 
agencies that we have sketched ; when thus it starts, it is indigestion, 
it grows into cholera, it soon mounts upward on the wings of the 
wind, and becomes contagious and so widens and deepens into the 
dreadful cholera epidemic. Then it is indeed dreadful. Truly a 
" pestilence that walketh in darkness and wasteth by noonday," the 
ghastly ghost that will not down at your bidding, but which laughs 
at your calamity and derides the universal distress. 

Well, what can science and experience suggest for such a state, for 
such a poultry plague ? They both declare it is like sin, or anyother 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTEY CULTUIiE. 79 

wrong influence, it must be treated early, if at all. It can only be 
successfully treated in the early stages. How then ? By carefully 
regarding the diet and considering the condition of the fowls during 
the hot and dangerous season of moulting in summer and fall and 
stimulating diet easy of digestion. Prevention by proper care and 
diet constitutes the cure for poultry cholera. But, do not wise men 
claim to cure the worst of cases by special drugs, or what they call 
specifices ? 

For this reason we have gone back of the so-called cholera, and ex- 
posed its origin, have acquainted you with the conditions that are 
causative of the scourge, that all might plainly comprehend the fact, 
that the most that any doctor ever did was to produce a condition : 
if the condition exists that must produce cholera, the only sensible 
thing that human agency can do, or attempt, is to change the condi- 
tions. Other doctors may claim to cure, but I never knew a mortal 
man to do such a miracle. 

I have often changed the conditions, but, nature, or a power that 
presides still higher always causes the force that relates to life to 
bring about the cure. 

But don't you give drugs ? Yes, but only to produce a condition, 
and mostly to assist digestion and never when the vital forces are 
stopped. 

But hasn't a French savant of science by name of M. Pasteur per- 
suaded nature to impart to him the true panacea for all this dreadful 
poultry pleague ? And can you definitely de£ne what he actually 
does, to forestall the force of this agent of evil called chicken chol- 
era ? Why, M. Pasteur secures and dries the blood of a bird that is 
thoroughly infected with cholera, and dissolves and injects this pois- 
oned fluid into the blood vessels of a healthy fowl, and so he clains 
to be able to destroy the susceptibility of this doctored system, to re- 
ceive the infection from all the vulgar agencies that are causative of 
cholera. 

In short, M. Pasteur maintains that all the evil genei that engen- 
der cholera are barred by this simple procedure. 

Another foreign celebrity has more recently arisen above the hori- 
zen in the great German Empire and has beamed out over the intell- 
ectual waste places of the rest of the world the full effulgence of his 
scientific force. Dr. Koch of Germany, has excited the highest hopes 
of humanity everywhere and awakened a scientific interest in pro- 



OU STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOUKNAL. 

fessional circles second only to the triumph of Jenner when he dis- 
covered and demonstrated the protective power of vaccination against 
the scourge of small pox. 

This German savant assures the world that he has discovered in the 
blood of cholera patients, by miscroscopic aid, certain animalcular 
existences, a species of Bachteria or Fungi of such infinite fineness 
and yet such aggravating influence that they irritate the nervous sys- 
tem, poison the pabulum of tissue or atomic nutrition, and so be- 
come causative of asiatic cholera. 

This great discovery has, at least, the negative merit of being 
novel and new and difficult to down. It has stimulated the most ex- 
haustive scientific research, and the result has dug about and des- 
troyed the foundation of the Doctor's fame, since some reckless 
scientists have swallowed, injected and freely taken these living 
germs into their system suffered no discomfort. 

Even so may the large lumbracoid worm be found in cholera pa- 
tients and yet not stand in a causative relation to cholera. 

The fact, we think, is well founded, that cholera originates in in- 
nutrition induced by excessive heat, unhealthy food and water, and 
air. Add to these mental or physical fatigue, or any depressing in- 
fluence, and nutritional changes are arrested, repair is stopped and 
waste is increased. Vital force then begins to diminish, the blood 
vessels relax, and their fluid contents flow out into the intestinal 
track and are expelled from the system ; the blood becomes too thick 
to circulate in the smaller vessels from loss of water, the extremities 
and skin grow cold in consequence and death closes the scene. 

Such is cholera, differing but little either in the fowl or the human 
family. 

In this disease especially, a grain of preventation, is more than 
any vaunted article of cure. 

In the human subject a hypodermic injection of morphia, % grain, 
under the skin, of the stomach after each action, is the best and 
only cure. 

In the most hopeless cases it often closes the fatal flood gate, 
and saves the wasting life. Then the most easily digestible and 
stimulating diet restores nutrition and healthful functions are 
resumed. 

But opium in any form, in my hands, has always been fatal to sick 
fowls. I feel that my recent experience in treating this affection may 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURK. 81 

be of general service and so I report two cases from among several, 
all of which were equally and entirely successful. 

First case : A fine Buff Cochin Cock, two years old, beginning his 
moult in July, became stupid, ceased to notice his mating, stopped 
crowing, comb turned blue, would walk but a few yards and sit down, 
crop full of thick fluid (mucous from stomache irritation), trembled 
and looked frightened and would not eat. Bowels loose with yellow, 
frothy discharges at first, but soon became green and thin and soon 
milky, or like rice water with mucous, which indicates the albumen 
of the blood is passsing out through the bowels together with mucous 
from lining membrane of bowels. 

Well, surely here is what is termed a case of sporadic, or spontan- 
eous cholera. This case originated in my yard from excessive heat, 
from debility of breeding, and from the exhaustion incident to 
moulting. 

I could not afford to loose that Buff Cock as he was a $50 bird. I 
put him apart in the shade on the blue grass ; gave him oil cake, 
water, fresh and cool to drink, and then proceeded to medicate him 
as follows ; took a cold biscuit, soaked it in sweet milk and worked 
it up soft ; then added about the fourth of a teaspoonfull of ground 
black pepper, the same of flour sulphur, and ateaspoonful of ground 
oyster shell ; mixed thoroughly and made into pills the size of pecans 
or peanuts and gave him one fourth of the biscuit by putting it down 
his throat ; in two hours gave him another fourth, and so on, in six 
hours had given all and he improved from the first to get well. I fed 
him on wheat bread and milk for several days until his discharges 
became normal and he rapidly recovered. 

Case second : My Plymouth Rock Cock, first pen was a noble 
essex specimen and taken the same as my buff, except that he 
became blind in one eye. I treated him the same, did nothing for 
the eye, and he, too, and several others since have all recovered from 
that treatment. 

I have seen chickens ravenously swallow crushed china plate and 
recover at once from diarrhoea, hence the use of the oyster shell. 

I think the flour of these shells would be also very good thus given 
in boluses of peppered and sulphured milk and bread. 

I have but little faith in the Douglas mixture, because, the fowl gets 
too much iron and too much acid. 

It will be remembered by all physiologists that iron composes but 



82 STANDAED AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CULTUBE. 

3 parts to the 1,000 of the blood, and is never indicated in the treat- 
ment of a human patient suffering with intestinal irritation. It does 
not digest and too often irritates. 

Instead of the Douglas mixture, finely powdered iron added once 
or twice per week to the^ soft food in the proportion of 10 grains oi 
Lactate or Carbonate of Iron to 10 pounds of food and 2 or 3 big 
spoonsful of ground oyster shell and leave out the acid and your food 
will be much more rational and, I think, more healthful. If you do 
not care to combine these ingredients you will find "The American 
Poultry Food," made by C. J. Ward, Chicago, Ills., equally good. 

Then to conclude on this subject, let me impress the vast impor- 
tance of so feeding and cleaning and careing for your fowls that they 
may not get sick ; but don't feed too much. A little, but often. Be 
especially careful from May until November, but especially during 
July and August for cholera, and for those fowls and chicks that are 
fledging the cold mornings and nights and hot days of autumn look 
out for Roup. 




STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTEY OULTUBE. 83 



CHAPTER X. 




BOUP. WHAT IT IS. ITS BELATTVE AND BEAL IMPOBTANCE. BOUP 
DIVIDED INTO TWO STAGES, FIBST, THE SIMPLE CATABBH OB MUCOUS 
BATTLE, ITS CAUSE, MATUBE AND SIGNIFICANCE. SECOND, ULCEBA- 
TIVE CATABBH OB DIPTHEBITIO BOUP. ITS BESEMBLANCE TO DIPH- 
THERIA IN HUMAN FAMILY. ITS OEIGIN. BOUP DESCEIBED. TBEAT- 
MENT. 

JlLTLE cholera is more rapidly fatal than roup the latter is 
the more relentless and ruinous in the end and the most 
persistent of all poultry plagues. 

Roup is an innamation of the mucous lining membrane 
air~of the passages which often pushes its presence into the cleft pal- 
ate, the mouth and eyes. In its incipiency, or at first, it is only a cold 
or catarrh, unless contracted from others by infection and then it 
assumes a specific and especially active and ulcerative aspect at 
once. 

Roup, therefore, may truly be studied and treated as two distinct 
varieties. First ; the simple catarrh, or mucus rattle that is charac- 
terised only by a slight odorless and clear mucus issue from the nose 
and which scarcely affects the appetite or general health of the chick. 
This variety may so remain for months, but usually recovers by good 
diet and dry, warm, clean quarters. It is usually the result of expos- 
ure to damp and chill weather, foul quarters and poor food, 

Second : ulcerative catarrh, or Diphtheritic Roup is closely allied 
in all its essential characteristics to malignant diphtheria in the 
human subject. The origin, or causation is doubtless due to filth, 
insufficient or improper food and cold, wet roosting places, either, 
or all combined is cause sufficient to produce congestion and inflam- 
mation of the delicate membranes of the throat. The eyes begin to 
water, the nostrils are closed by tenacious glue like exudation, the 
bird breathes deep and difficult, the mucous collects in the windpipe 



84 STANDARD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

and all over the glottis, or opening into the air passage yellow ul- 
cers and cheesy exdations are deposited causing the bird to cough 
and often ends in suffocation. The swelling extends from the nos- 
trils upward and outward invading the orbit and swelling and clos- 
ing the eyes, bursting and permanently blinding the fowl. 

The worst forms of malignant roup seem prone to ulcerate every- 
where about the head and throat until the whole presents a swollen, 
shapeless mass of indurated ulcers everywhere offensive and highly 
infectious. This form of roup is rarely ever completely cured. The 
putrid products of ulcerative supuration so easily finds its way to the 
lungs whence it enters the blood, that the whole bird is soon filled 
with the poison. 

There is no disease more dreadful, none so unpleasant to treat, 
none so likely to propagate its like among all the other birds. If the 
bird survives the inflammatory ulcerations, if these be checked 
there is likely to follow a chronic catarrh, which at any time may 
rekindle from dampness and cold into a radical renewal of the first 
and worst features. 

This disease like pneumonia, is peculiarly predisposed to relapse 
from the least exposure after a previous attack, because the damp 
and chilly air must be brought into actual contact with the now 
debilitated and sensitive surface, and so one season's acquaintance 
with roup permanently impresses itself on the memory. 

It began once in my flock from little chicks being abandoned and 
exposed by the hens and soon spread among the fowls. 

Treatment : Pen up every bird in large, dry, warm quarters. 
Whitewash daily with carbolized lime. Keep out all drafts of cold, 
damp air ; feed hot bran, mashed potatoes and meat and medicate the 
throat and mouth and nostrils with chloride of sodium, or common 
salt as follows . Take a bucketful of warm salt water, put a teacup 
full of salt to that amount of water. Then catching the bird examine 
the throat and nostrils, removing aft cheesy matter and pressing all 
mucus out of the nostrils, then filling a pint cup for each afflicted 
bird, hold it by the feet, with head down, choke it until the mouth is 
wide open and then insert the head into the solution, comb down, so 
that the medicated water may enter the cleft in the palate and go out 
at each nostril and into the throat. Every part of the affected sur- 
face may be thus immersed and all at once, and so easily that I am 
persuaded it is the best possible manner of applying the medicine. 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL, POULTRY CULTURE. 85 

Each should be separately treated, not all from the same cupful, but 
one cup will do for all. 

Sulphate of zinc, with equal parts of chlorate of potassa, a half 
ounce of the mixture to a bucket of water ; or sulphate of copper, or 
nitrate of silver may be used about two drachms of each to the same 
amount of water, may each be tried in turn, but I have succeeded 
best with the salt water and carbolized whitewash . 

Kerosine injected into the nostrils is said to cure ; and camphorated 
sweet oil so used is the one remedy relied upon by Mr. B. N. Pierce 
of Fancier's Gazette. But the best remedy, where the bird will score 
less than ninety points, is the hatchet. Kill every bird as fast as 
badly affected, treat the mild case? with energy and you will soon put 
an end to roup. But do not let it get a foothold in your yards, 
prevention is the best plan of treating all these dreadful diseases. 

The one grand, golden idea to be practically put in operation among 
poultry and all other stock is this ; Live yourself and treat every- 
thing under your care like a true christian. Keep scrupulously clean 
and care religiously for the comfort of all that is dependent upon you. 
Then others may have chicken cholera and roup but you are not at 
all likely to be so punished. 



86 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 



CHAPTER XI. 



GAPES. WHAT IT RESEMBLES. COMPARED TO CROUP, DANGEROUS FROM 
ITS LOCATION. DIFFICULT TO TREAT. HOW IT KILLS. THE ESSENCE 
OF THE DISEASE. ITS SYMPTOMS. HOW THE CHICKS DIE. WHEN 
THEY CONTRACT IT. HOW LONG PREDISPOSED TO IT. THE CONDI- 
TIONS THAT PREDISPOSE TO IT. HOW TO AVOID GAPES. THE MOULT- 
ING PERIODS IN THEIR RELATION TO DISEASE. HOW OFTEN CHICKS 
MOULT. HOW OFTEN FOWLS MOULT. PRACTICAL FACTS IN CONNEC- 
TION THEREWITH. REAL CAUSE OF GAPES. NOGAPESWHEN CHICKS ARE 
HATCHED 4ND REARED BY THE INCUBATOR PROCESS. WHAT GENERATES 
THE GAP-WORM? THE PECULIARITY OF GAPES AS TO LOCALITY. ITS 
RAVAGES IN SOME SECTIONS OF EUROPE. TREATMENT. THE POPULAR 
PLAN. ITS DIFFICULTIES. THE AUTHOR' S REMEDY AND HOW HE 
FOUND IT. 



ONE other formidable affection that often carries off whole 
flocks of little chicks deserves consideration in this con- 
nection. The Gapes. This disease, like membranous 
cronp in little children, is difficult to treat and especially 
dangerous from this exclusive location. Both are located in the up- 
per air passages and are rapidly fatal by way of nervous prostration 
and suffocation. But only in the manner of death and seat of the 
disease are the two affections at all alike. Both, however, tax the 
cleverest curative skill. 

Our purpose in this place is with Gapes. The essence of the dis- 
ease, or in technical terms, the pathology ofgapesis the simplest pos- 
sible and always the same, and consists of one or more small, red, 
round and crooked worms in the trachea, or windpipe, scarcely so large 
or long as a pin. These continually accumulate and by their presence 
provoke a constant gaping effort to admit more air and almost con- 
stant strangling cough or forceful wheezing efforts at expulsion. 
These labored efforts grow continually worse as the worms constantly 



STANDAKD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTEY CULTURE. 87 

accumulate until the chick dies from utter exhaustion, or complete 
suffocation. Usually the chick is exempt from this affection until 
four weeks old ; usually they contract it from five or ten weeks ; after 
three months old I have never known one attacked. The period, 
then, when subject to this dreadful disorder, is from four to twelve 
weeks old; usually, if indeed, not always, this disease comes at 
the time when new feathers are beginning to come out and draw 
heavily upon the vital resources of the chick. 

The gapes do not effect the chick before it begins to fledge, nor 
after it has on its first coat of feathers. 

Thus, it will be observed that the period of moulting and the start- 
ing of the new plumage ushers in almost all the more dangerous 
forms of poultry disease. From this fact we draw the following 
practical lessons: First; Select for commercial poultry culture 
such variety of stock that feathers out earliest, hence less liable to the 
only disorders they will never be old enough to meet before they are 
marketed, which should be at three months old and before the second 
moult. Second ; By observing the moulting periods of poultry and 
then giving them special feed and care we may always maintain a 
perfect immunity from these three worst of all other poultry ills, viz; 
Gapes, Roup and Cholera. 

A chick, it will be remembered, moults twice before it is eight 
months old. It sheds its infant coat of dawn and receives its first 
coat of feathers at from three to nine weeks old. It then, if ever, 
suffers from gapes. It sheds this first coat of feathers at from six 
to eight months old then is liable, or predisposed to Roup and Chol- 
era upon the slightest adverse influence which acts as an exciting 
cause. It wears the second coat of feathers one year, which finds the 
chick over one year old and, therefore, a fowl. It has its first annual 
moult as a fowl, at eighteen months old and then it is, especially, 
that the bird is liable to cholera, unless especially fed and cared for 
till the new annual plumage appears. 

Fowls moult once annually. These are practical facts of vast im- 
portance to the poultryman, since it enables him to know the dread- 
ful disease and the physical conditions that predispose to them and 
the seasons and kind of weather that acts as exciting causes. But, 
respecting the cause of gapes other than what has just been suggested, 
we must confess our utter ignorance. Corn meal dough fed freely 
to the ehicks has been indicted for doing such mischief and there is 



88 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

much evidence in the direction of conviction and yet, having recently 
tested the theory, I find that gapes are generated where no such diet 
is fed : but not so bad. To some extent we still suspect the diet of 
corn meal dough as causative. 

I think thus far, no gapes have invaded the flocks of chicks that 
have been hatched and reared in an Incubator. Why ? Because the 
brooder plan of caring for the chicks precludes the possibility of 
those exposures so notoriously incidental to the care and control of 
the old perambulating hen. 

This suggests another fact. All the preventives yet devised for 
gapes that have proved successful consists in keeping chick confined 
in dry, healthy quarters, spading up the ground and giving varied 
diet, but the best of food. Thus adopting to that extent the scien- 
tific system. This done until the chick has fledged or feathered and 
all danger is passed. Why ? Because, then, the debilitating influ- 
ence is overand the covering of feathers keeps the chick's constitution 
from feeling the chilling winds and dampness. These facts that re- 
late rather to prevention strongly suggest the cause to be any agency 
that tends to depress the vital force, such as foul weather and feed 
and the excitement and debility due to fledging. 

Thus negatively, we may diagnose, or determine the cause of any 
difficulty, if only we may find the sure jirevention, the opposite must 
certainly contain the cause. But 1 , what generates the worm, espec- 
ially of one kind and always in one place, and that in the air pass- 
age ? This we do not definitely know and conjecture is fruitless in 
the absence of absolute proof ; but, practically, we are pretty well 
armed against thegapes,since we can surely prevent them as above 
suggested, and, we can cure them by the simplest method. 

Gapes seem selective in their visitation, attacking certain sec- 
tions, exclusively, while others never know what they are, by sad 
experience. 

In certain parts of Europe they are a terrible plague. I recently 
read of their inroads among the great poultry raisers of France, to 
destroy as high as 1,500 chicks and Pheasants in a single night. 

Every possible remedy has been suggested to effectually reach and 
remove, or else destroy this nest of little spiral worms in the wind- 
pipe of the chick. Horse hairs looped and let down, twisted and 
drawn out is a popular plan, and feathers medicated and pushed down 
the pipe to persuade the worm out. " Tincture of camphor and pep- 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTEY CUIiTtTBE. 89 

per in the water," and on the feather, have been reported a success ; 
but if any good old lady of either sex will let me see them take a chick 
pull f oward its ton gue and hold it there, even with assistance, then 
take a feather or doubled horse hair and go down harmlessly into the 
chicks windpipe, bring out all those worms and the chick gets well, 
then I will confess her surgical skill of the very highest possible 
order. I have always seen these experts fail and, like myself, they 
always succeed, in my presence in killing the chick. 

Finally I found a remedy to reach and kill the worm. Being one 
night among my chicks that were all over the floor of the hen house 
coughing and gasping, I decided to try carbolized sulpher, as I knew 
from experience with it that one can easily fill the air with it, and 
that, I thought, must reach the worms and, if so, either the sulphur 
or carbolic acid must prove fatal and at the same time not harm the 
chick. So believing, I took several handsful of sulphur into which 
fluid carbolic acid had been stired in the proportion of one or two 
drachms to the ten pounds of sulphur and throwing it recklessly all 
over the chicks, I set up the most terrific cough and commotion, but 
every chick was better next day ; and by repeating the next night, 
cured every chick of the gapes. 

A better way of making the application would be to fill an insect 
powder box, containing a small bellows, which can be purchased at 
almost any drug store for fifty cents, and filling it with the carbolized 
sulphur, blow it directly into the air passages and so save 500 per 
cent, of your sulphur and do the work better. 

The chick will rally in health and strength at once when it coughs 
up the dead worm, which will be inside of twenty-four hours. 

Without intending to advocate the efficacy of sulphur for every- 
thing, it will be found to have a wide range of application in treat- 
ing and preventing all those affections where insect or vermin, or 
parasite existence is supposed, or proved to play an essential part. 
Used as an ointment with carbolic acid it will readily cure scaled 
legs, because, there an insect life lies under the scales on the legs. 
So lice can be completely cleaned out with carbolized sulphur on 
anything, or fleas on dogs ; but let me implore every person who reads 
these pages never to grease anything that wears feathers. It is un- 
necessary and it ruins feathers to grease them ; besides, if you still 
adhear to the ancient hen system and attempt to set a hen with a 
partical of grease on her, the eggs will rot of course. Why ? Because 



nO STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

the grease closes the pores and shuts out oxygen. 

Often in the late fall months a flock of nearly grown chicks will 
break out with pustular eruptions all over the head, comb and wat- 
tels, sometimes so seriously as to destroy the comb. The pustules 
contain green, thick pus and are infectious. Open all the pustules 
and annoint the effected parts with carbolized sulphur ointment. 
Feed sulphur in bran or soft food and keep birds out of cold or wet 
weather. The disease is not serious, it is " chicken pox" or " dry 
roup ;" indeed, we feel that when we have thoroughly mastered the 
situation, have a perfectly intelligent understanding of the seasons 
when the three most formidable of all poultry diseases appear and 
the condition of the fowls or chick's physical system at those particu- 
lar times, which so thoroughly predispose them to those ills, and when 
thus enlightened as to the cause, and can both prevent and cure 
Gapes, Roup, and Cholera, we have very little else to fear from those 
other lesser ills and ailments that never rise to the dignity of epidem- 
ic disease among a flock of chicks or fowls, and, so our present pur- 
pose is only to point out those formidable affections that would be 
likely to wreck the enterprise of extensive poultry culture and so, in 
this connection, have not thought it necessary to go beyond the con- 
sideration of the great Trinity of poultry trouble, which are Gapes, 
Roup and Cholera. 

Of course, these do not cover the whole of poultry diseases ; but 
diarrhoea and canker are so nearly identical with cholera and roup 
that a similar treatment will generally suffice. 

Bound crop had better be opened early, at the top, the contents 
cleaned out with the finger boldly and the inch or two of opening 
sewed up by passing three or four stitches deep through the skin and 
muscle of the crop, and feed the bird soft food for ten days in con- 
finement and then cut out the stitches. 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 91 



CHAPTER XII. 



A POULTRY FARM DIVISION INTO THREE DEPARTMENTS. FIRST, A POUTRY 
FARM FOR EGGS. SECOND, A POULTRY FARM FOR STANDARD FOWLS. 
THIRD, A POULTRY FARM FOR MARKET POULTRY. MATING FOWLS. 
MATING FOWLS FOR FERTILE EGGS AND VIGOROUS, HEALTHY CHICKS 
FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES. ASIATIC MALE BIRDS UNFIT FOR COMMER- 
CIAL POULTRY CULTTRE. ASIATIC FEMALES THE ONLY KXND SUITABLE. 
REASONS WHY. DIVISIONS OF RUNS, HOUSES AND GROUNDS FOR 500 
HENS. HOW DIVIDED. HOW TO BE HONEST WITH AN INCUBATOR BY 
RAISING YOUR OWN EGGS, HOW TO MATE FOR EXHIBITION. HOW TO 
FIX FOR SHOWS. THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL FEED. HOW TO CHECK 
OVULATION IN HENS. 




JE now come to the more congenial care and management 
of aPonltry Farm, and, we confess, our special pleasure 
in the elaboration of this fruitful theme. There are three 
separate and distinct departments of poultry culture 
that admit of coming under the caption of a poultry farm, 
namely ; 1st., a poultry farm for eggs, 2nd., a poultry farm for breed- 
ing market chicks, and 3rd., one for cultivating strictly standard or 
thoroughbred exhibition and breeding birds. Which of these afford 
the greatest profit must relate very largely to place and circumstance. 
For instance, the breeding of broilers, or young chicks for early 
market would be barred by bad market, or if the location was so 
far from a large and populous city that transportation of chicks 
would be impracticable, would, of course, suggest one of the other 
departments such as eggs or blooded fowls, which maybe safely sent 
any distance. 

We shall say but little in this work of the egg farm, because 
we are conducting some valuable experiments, and because the 
original purpose of the present volume embraced only Standard and 
Commercial Poultry Culture by artificial process. We shall shortly 



92 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

issue a manual on the " Egg Farm," which, we think, will prove 
especially serviceable. 

We now propose, first a few suggestions of the practical operation? 
of Commercial Poultry Culture by artificial process. To this end we 
insist on assigning to the hen her only proper and profitable func- 
tion, that of furnishing fresh and fertile eggs in the greatest possible 
quantity and state of perfection. And let us for these reasons look 
carefully into this matter and be sure that our stock andmatings are 
such as shall insure us the largest number of finest fertile eggs from 
large, vigorous stock. The reason assigned for all such precision 
and particularity in detail are fully set fourth in the preceeding 
pages and need not be repeated here, 

We now confront a very important consideration of this question 
of poultry culture and one which must always practically affect the 
issue of all our operations. I mean the scientific mating and man- 
agement and proper varieties of fowls for fertile eggs and vigorous 
beautiful chicks. 

For market purposes a judicious cross of pure bred varieties has 
proved much the most successful, because we thereby secure the ben- 
efit of new blood and avoid that of continual inbreeding which, to 
some extent, - retards in time, the growth and size and value both of 
chicks and eggs. 

The thorough-bred asiatic males are disqualified for purposes of 
commercial poultry culture by reason of the vigorous duties imposed 
upon the breeding birds and, as six or eight females are the most 
that can be mated with an asiatic male bird, the question of house 
room and runs become an item for consideration. 

The greatest possible number of hens to each harem will greatly 
assist in economizing space ; and such males must be selected as 
can best accomodate the largest number. To this end the male bird 
becomes an important factor. He must be large and vigorous and 
and very active and yet fully matured. These qualities are abso- 
lutely necessary in the male, that he may fertilize the eggs and 
impart his size and stamina to the chicks. 

It, therefore, becomes evident that the asiatic male bird must be 
barred by the essential conditions for such mating. 

But, if, for this cause we cannot employ the asiatic male, neither 
pan we for equally good reasons employ the hens from the smaller 
varieties, because the size and rapid growth of the chicks are points 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTEY CULTUEE. 93 

of vital importance, in view of the vast quantities of food several 
thousand chicks will daily consume. We, therefore, from the very 
nature of the case, cannot employ the smaller females for want of 
size. 

With these facts before us, we are forced to select that variety of 
females that combine in fullest measure the very important qualities 
of size, vigor and egg prolificness. We care nothing, whatever, 
about the hen's action, since she is assigned to no service that will 
call such qualities into action ; but we must have perfect action in the 
male bird and, of course, the greatest size consistent with that essen- 
tial quality. 

Again, it is of first importance that these birds be bred from the 
best laying strains, and chicks will always sell better that are all alike 
in size and color. 

To meet all these essentials including size, vigor, action and egg 
prolificness in the fowls, and hardihood, uniform color and large 
early maturity in the chicks, we recommend the following mating as 
most beautiful and vigorous and, therefore, best. 

First: Fifteen large, early hatched Buff or Partridge Cochin 
pullets mated with a large and vigorous Browm Leghorn yearling 
cock. 

We will insure this mating to produce large, brown, beautiful Yel- 
loiv legged chicks that cannot be equalled for vigor and that will weigh 
two and one-half pounds each, at ninety days old. 

These Buff, or Partridge Cochin pullets will each lay eighty eggs 
from November first, to the middle of April, a little over five 
months ; and such a male, if rightly fed, will fertilize almost every 

egg- 

The male bird might be better if half Buff cochin and half Brown 
Leghorn ; but he must have the best of action. 

Another mating equally good is the following : 

Second: Fifteen early hatched Light Brahma pullets and one 
large, high grade, rose-comb White Leghorn cock one year old. 

These two matings, we believe, all things considered must prove 
the very best possible for purposes of commercial poultry culture. 

These fowls thus mated should be quartered on dry, gravely, rich 
soil, well drained and set in shade trees and clover in summer and rye 
in winter. 

Five hundred hens thus mated should have five acres of pasture to 



94 STANDARD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

do perfectly well. This should be surrounded with a tight, high and 
strong barbed wire fence and so divided that roads would admit a 
wagon or cart to come all through the quarters to convey feed and 
haul away manure, etc. The houses should be built in rows behind 
each other with the largest possible space between, for pasture. 

In five acres there are 13,200 square feet and 500 hens, divided into 
pens of 15 each, give 33 pens, say 35 as two extra could be used for 
broody hens. The 5 acres divided into 35 pens would give to each 
pen about 377 sq. feet, including houses and roads, or about 15 or 20 
feet to each bird. The houses can be made of upright pine boards 
very knotty and rough, lined and covered by thick tared felt, six feet 
high in front, four in rear, roof one way pitched and graveled ; house 
10 x 20 feet, cement floor. 

The original cost can be better calculated by each for himself, 
as land and labor and lumber vary in price in every locality. 

These quarters, if not warm enough in winter, can be made so by 
the use of the box brooder under the floor heated by coal oil lamps, 
or better still, by glass in the roof ; the building lined will make the 
house very warm. 

Once thus fixed, eggs can be relied upon from November to July, 
through the coldest of weather, and such eggs will give infinitely bet- 
ter satisfaction, better hatches and better chicks than any other pos- 
sible source. Do not depend on anybody else for eggs. 

These hens should be all changed at the fall moult, fattened and 
dressed for market before they moult, and replaced by pullets that 
were hatched from the same stock, new male birds annually intro- 
duced, and so the greatest of all difficulties that the artificial system 
of poultiy culture ever encountered may be thus completely over- 
come. 

The practical necessity will be seen to be a reliable supply of per- 
fectly fresh and fertile eggs that are not shaken, nor chilled and from 
stock that are full of health and vigor, of large size and early to ma- 
ture. Such a test never failed, and such is the only way to be honest 
with an Incubator. 

Will any sane man doubt that this can be carried out and will any 
honest man decry the Incubator, when such essential conditions are 
not complied with. Of course, the latitude that we have all allowed 
the general plans and specifications as herein sketched for yards and 
buildings, are not at all arbitrary or unalterable. 



STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 95 

The purpose on which we insist is to provide ample, cheap and 
comfortable accomodations for a vast flock of fowls and secure the 
necessary quantity and quality of eggs. 

These fowls are all young and not easily fattened, but demand to 
be fed on the scientific principles suggested in our article on food. 
Remember the condition we require in these breeding birds is the 
fleshy and muscular, the fibrous and not the fatty condition. 

Feed for vigorous health and thus for eggs. 

After these birds have been bred from October or November, until 
the following June, thus covering the season when broilers, or market 
poultry pay the largest, it becomes necessary to remove and market 
them all for the several following good reasons. 

First : They will not lay as lavishly the second year as they did 
the first, because they will have attained full growth and develop- 
ment and, hence the full feed that is required to force the largest 
egg yield from early pullets would fatten hens and induce them to 
set. 

Second : As we have seen in our article on the predisposition to 
disease, there is scarcely any danger so long as fowls are in full 
feather, but so soon as they begin to moult, the loss of feathers 
allows of loss of vital heat and the further drain upon the system from 
the starting new plumage and the oppressive heat by day, and the 
cool nights of autumn, contribute to cholera and roup. 

Third: A thorough cleansing, whitewashing and disinfecting of 
all the quarters through August and September are essential to main- 
tain for the succeeding year the most perfect condition of health upon 
a poultry farm. 

It therefore, becomes an important and necessary part of the gen- 
eral management to stop incubation in May and fatten the fowls in 
June, market and clean up and prepare for early fall. 

We thus get the best prices for chicks and the fowls will pay 
their first cost. We get the greatest possible number of eggs 
within any period of a pullet's life the first five or six months 
of her laying. We avoid the cholera, we keep everything 
scrupulously clean and we get our fowls fat and marketed 
before they moult. 

These fat hens, correctly cleaned and packed and consigned to any 
first class establishment in New York will command a ready sale at 
from 10 to 18 cents per pound. 



96 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE 

So much for eggs and stock. 

Everything, of course, depends upon that, and unless thus organ- 
ized, no persons can provide them for you at any price. 

By the arrangement here outlined, your cost all comes back 
to you in the annual sale of fat fowls, the best of eggs and stock 
secured and after the original outlay everything in the form of cost 
and care are reduced to the lowest possible point at which any large 
and lucrative enterprise can be successfully prosecuted. But sup- 
pose we do not care to breed for market, but our purpose is to fur- 
nish the finest, standard breeding and exhibition stock, wherein does 
all this outlay essentially differ in the prosecution of the two depart- 
ments of poultry culture. We answer, mainly in the mating. 

Whatever variety of standard stock be thus confined the male bird 
should not be allotted over five to eight hens, first, because the large 
breeds will better fertilize the eggs of a few hens and, again, the 
fewer in each flock, the longer the pasture will last and the less liable 
to disease. 

Again, five asiatic females will lay 400 eggs during the breeding 
season and, if only these five be assigned to the care of one vigorous 
cockeral, experience and science assures us, that the eggs are much 
better fertilized and the vigor imparted to the chicks is soon made 
manifest in their superior size, strength and early development. 
What is most essential above all in this fine blooded stock is color, 
vigor, symmetry and full size and development. Therefore, in order 
to insure the most perfect reproduction of the breeding birds, do not 
draw too heavily upon his vital resources by giving him too many 
hens. 

Fanciers, or standard poultrymen remember, do not breed so 
much for quantity as for quality. Since superior excellence of 
standard merit determines the price upon what their yards produce. 
For example, a vigorous asiatic male bird that will honestly score 96 
points will readily sell in England or America for $100, while 10 
birds that would score only six points less would not bring the same 
money. 

Quality, then, is the essential consideration with the fancier, and 
high quality can never come from even the best standard specimens 
if overmated. I trust this point will stand impressed, because it has 
much to do in determining the vigor, the beauty and highest scoring 
qualities of pure bred poultry as well as everything else. 



STANDAED AND COMMEECTAL POULTBY CULTUBE. 97 

Such high priced and rare standard stock as would justify the cost 
and exclusive care of the standard breeder must often be kept and 
continued in breeding and cross breeding and so the same yards 
must be always occupied, and for this reason, also, the number 
should be as small as possible ; thus, the same general plans of poul- 
try houses and grounds will serve equally well, both for the occu- 
pancy of market and standard mating. 

Nor shall the diet be different, since in both cases the condition of 
the two classes must be kept in the finest possible plight for egg pro- 
duction. 

With so much room thus assigned to six or eight high class birds 
we are in condition to relieve the cock and separate him from further 
company and contact with the hens when the moulting period 
appears, and the sale and incubation of high priced eggs are no 
longer allowed. Then, of right, the breeding stock should rest, and 
ovulation be no longer allowed, because the fruit of these functions 
are worse than wasted, and should be reserved for such time as they 
shall again command the fancier's price in the revival of trade in the 
coming spring. Besides this, the birds should be shaped for the 
shows, for there the breeder must bring the merits of his stock to 
that truest test which, if successful, makes his market. The cocks 
trien, should be partitioned from the harem and all more fully fed 
and filled out plump, especially up to something over standard weight 
making allowance for loss of flesh while shipping and showing. 

The faults of symmetry must now be filled with fat, the oil that 
lends lustre to the plumage is, also, thus secured and the plump and 
perfect, full and faultless form of the grandest, sleek and splendid 
specimens of exhibition stock largely rely on the service of sufficient 
fat to insure, at least, the finest possible condition. Well, how shall 
this be rightly done ? We answer by checking ovulation in the hens 
and relieving the cock from duty in the harem and by generous diet 
such as combine the fat elements as formulated in our table. Wheat 
and oil cake meal especially beautifiy the plumage of Buff Cochins 
and buckwheat, says Mr. Wright, is especially adapted for the fitting 
up of the Partridge Cochin for exhibition. 

Now, whether the true philosophy of the good effect of such diet 
be in the deposit of the coloring matter peculiar to these cereals, or 
whether it be from the elegance of such diet, as science and exper- 
ience have found that they afford, or both, we are not positively 



98 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL. 

assured ; but, physiologica 1 experiments have shown that pigs fed on 
madder alternately, off and on for several weeks, revealed the alter- 
nate red and white colors in the laminae of their bones, from the 
deposit of the red coloring of the madder. Sulphur, too, imparts its 
coloring principle when fed in food ; but oil cake meal possesses the 
universal quality of imparting an oily gloss to the hair and plumage 
when fed with bran and shorts and crushed corn and oats steamed 
and fed warm. 

The present purpose is only suggestive ; but, surely, certain select 
and elegant articles of diet do impart a peculiarly grand, gaudy 
plumage to fowls. 

But how shall we check the function of ovulation in our laying 
hens ? We answer by breaking up their relations and changing their 
quarters. 

Cows are also very sensitive in this respect. I once purchased from 
Mr. Felch and shipped fromNatick, Mass., to Illinois some 40 Jer- 
sey cows. They all received the best of care enroute and ever after ; 
but, though many were fresh and others became so soon after the 
trip, yet, not until the next coming-in did we learn the full value of 
these glorious little fawn milkers. 

Hens will often cease laying at once on shifting them into new 
quarters and if often so disturbed, hens and pullets may be kept from 
laying almost completely. They never look so fine as just before 
laying. 

Since we are now considering for awhile the so-called Fancy Fowl ; 
but, if you will allow me to say with more propriety, the pure bred 
fowl, we would respectfully suggest that much greater success must 
come from the culture of large numbers of one variety than a few 
each of a great many varieties. Why ? Because each is essentially 
different from all the rest in form and feathers. For instance, 
the high cushion and broad low blocky build of the Buff Cochin 
would be radically wrong to keep as an ideal in the mind in 
mating your Light Brahmas and again, either of these varities can 
not be fed as freely as the Leghorn or Plymouth Rock for the reason 
that they would soon take on excessive fat and so be utterly broken 
down before the end of the season's breeding. A natural partiality 
for some particular variety of pure blooded poultry will soon suggest 
to each the particular variety he can best breed up to the highest 
perfection. The demand is infinite for all varities that are truely 
fine. 



STANDABD AND COMMBECIAL POULTKY. OULTUBE. 99 

No living poultry man ever admired intelligently every standard 
variety, and for that reason and endless others, would not and could 
not master the standard requisites to its correct cultivation. 

The endless diversity involved in the study of ten or twelve varie- 
ties would confuse, confound and utterly destroy that able accuracy 
in the delicate details of developement so essential to the success in 
aU. 

No breeder can succeed unless he studies the standard, assisted by 
delineations from the best artists and then bring the bird you would 
select as your breeder for perfect symmetry into the presence of this 
crucial comparative test. 

Thus equiped we go to the best exhibitions and there bring our 
own and other birds in critical comparison with each other, and 
with the true standard delineation. Possibly our bird is too low in 
back, or flat in breast, or otherwise so strikinly defective that we are 
amazed how much the standard comparison has pointed out. Other- 
wise we were uninformed, and so unfit to go forward and must fail if 
we do, thus uneducated. 




100 STANDABD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF STANDARD POULTRY CULTURE, CONTINUED. THE 
ESSENTIALS OF A SUCCESSFUL POULTRTMAN. HOW TO BREED FROM 
DISQUALIFIED BIRDS. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA IN AMERICA. THE INFLU- 
ENCE OF THE MALE BIED ON THE PROGENY, HIS GBEATEB PREPOTENCY 
ON ACCOUNT OF HIS GREATER YIGOR. HOW TO MATE FOR CORRECT 
LEG AND FOOT FEATHERING. HOW BEST TO SECURE THE SIZE. WHY 
THE MALE BIRD IS MORE PEEPOTENT. DR. STONEBRAKEfi'S PHILOS- 
OPHY ABOUT THE PEOPEE AGE FOE BEEEDING BIEDS. REASONS IN 
SUPPORT OF HIS YIEWS. IN-BREEDING. ITS NECESSITY IF CONTAM- 
NATION OF BLOOD CAN COME FROM COPULATION. THE QUESTION 
ARGUED AND THE RESULT PROVED INCORRECT. THE ONLY POSSIBLE 
MEDIUM FOE CONTAMINATION OF THE FEMALE IS THEOUGH THE 
MEDIUM OF THE MIND. INBEEEDING EXPLAINED, ADVOCATED 
WITHIN CERTAIN SAFE LIMITS. A PEDIGREE FOE FURE BRED FOWLS 
A NECESSITY. 

>HUS the principles of poultry culture must, of necessity, 
be studied like all other sciences, if we succeed. By such 
a process of direct and comparative study of each variety 
we breed, we become expert and deeply interested, and 
such " a qualification is absolutely essential to successful standard 
poultry culture. In this, as in everything else, brain must be in the 
business. " There is no excellence without great labor." No natural 
born poultrymen. He may be inclined in a given direction by special 
talents and taste, but there is absolutely no self-sufficiency of genius 
in anything. Education, hard, patient and persistent labor is the life 
and soul of all true excellence. Poultry culture is no exception we 
assure you, and all who embark in the business as a profession must 
first of all understand the necessity of this natural and educational 
qualification. Do not be ashamed of the business as a Poultryman, 
for success demands that all shall be proud of it. 




STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTUBE. 101 

Thus impresed and prepared for their comfort, then buy the best 
fowls that can be found. If only two or three, breed these and con- 
tinue to buy the best and never let a few dollars deter you from mat- 
ing up the best living birds. The most perfect is none too good to 
breed, since the closest aproximation to perfection in the parent 
stock will, from necessity, under the laws of inheritance, that, like 
produces like, give very much better standard specimens than cheaper 
and far inferior fowls. It is a sad mistake to suppose that from poor 
or even pretty good stock, the higher and splendid standard speci- 
mens may possibly be produced. 

A stream can not rise higher than its fountain sources, and be 
assured, that the same natural laws hold dominion over the mightest 
and minutest details of hereditary descent as faithfully as they do in 
the domain of gravitation. 

But all can not buy these best specimens, since there are but com- 
parativly few, and these command the heaviest prices. How then 
shall they be secured? How can they be bred? "We answer, first, 
breed directly from the most perfect specimens as before suggested. 
This any one may do who has good judgement and a bank account 
to his credit, but to breed these best specimens from "disqualified 
birds," requires great skill and scientific experience andj yet, such 
is the source of every thorough bred bird. I mean, to trace him 
back to his ancestry, he is indebted to that scientific device for all 
the standard excellencies to which he has attained. The origin of 
this idea is altogether unknown to me; (we find in Mr. Wright's 
large work, ) but to Mr. I. K. Felch, of Massachusetts, must be 
accorded the credit of giving it form and features and filling it 
with practical life among American fanciers. Especially in fixing 
the color, this eminent poultryman has demonsrtated the greater 
prepotency to be in the male birds, and thus mating the deep 
colored males to the lighter females he attains to a standard mean 
in the progeny that is much superior to either parent. But I 
think that he will allow exceptions to this greater prepotency in 
the male, for, in fact, it often occurs that the female even in color, 
imparts to the progeny her greater influence in fixing the correct 
color, and so Mr. Felch affirms, we think, in his second best matings 
of Light Brahmas. But the preponderate influence we think, belongs 
with the male as we find the dark male to give deeper dye to all the 
offspring more uniformly. We do not know that that theory is 



102 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

affirmed further than the mating of the Light Brahma ; but our own 
experience remarks it running among all varieties. 

A Buff Cochin male, bred to Partridge Cochin pullets will put the 
buff color on the chicks and breed out the striped feathers in three 
matings. A Plymouth Bock male bred to Brahmas will mark all 
chicks after himself. The male, in general, has that prepotency as 
to color. 

Again, the sex is largely males in early spring clutches, while the 
vigorous male is not reduced by over duty, while in feeble cocks, or 
much depressed by the season's service, the latter progeny are more 
largely pullets. 

We think, however, this question of imparting the greater degree 
of personal influence in fixing the color and other characteristics 
peculiar to either parent depends, in largest part, on the vital vigor 
of the one or the other. It, therefore, may be in favor of either, but, 
on account of this fact, the rule favors the male bird, he being as a 
rule, more vigorous. 

In mating for correct leg or foot feathering we have made long 
and careful observation and found it unsafe to breed a male Cochin 
with stiff, heavy hocks even to very sparely feathered hens ; but some 
of the finest hocks we ever saw were secured from vultured pullets 
and light-feathered, vigorous cocks. But the experiment must not 
be repeated with these improved progeny, but made permanent by 
observing the law of the first and best mating which calls for spe- 
cial best selection. This special selection embraces both the best 
mating, that is, the most perfect, and, also, the second principle, 
which must seek such specimens as shall secure the best mean or 
compromise between the imperfect pair. 

To illustrate. If we mate a Bnff Cochin pair, full, in breast, and 
body, broad in back, high full cushion, full roand soft hocks and 
heavy foot feathering, even rich deep under and outer color, 
small even combs pure buff wings and standard tails we should 
expect elegant offspring from such a source, for such birds are 
very high in standard excellence, such would be the best possible 
mating. 

Again, if we select just such a male but very heavily hocked, with 
stiff quils protruding down and backward from the hock joint you 
dare not mate him at all, even though the female be barren of mid- 
dle toe feathering and light in hock; but, if the female be immensly 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE 103 

feathered, even approaching the vulture, and the cock be vigorous 
and sparcely feathered, the progeny will many of them be finely 
feathered. Thus, the principle all through proves the prevailing 
greater power of the male bird to impart his special features and, I 
will add, also his form upon the flock. The size of the chick, we 
think, may be most easily secured from the hen, since it is almost 
impossible to breed a very large male bird successfully, and entirely 
so, to small hens. 

The one idea we would impress is, if we try to get a standard 
balance or midway point of merit, or, if you please, an average 
mean between two birds that are out in different directions in the 
same section, or part, then expect the male bird to have the greater 
modifying influence since he imparts the vital principle that moulds 
all the matter of the mother egg largely in his own image. 

Thus we rest from further pursuit of the principles of mating, 
claiming nothing original but the reason why the male bird hath the 
greater prepotency of power to impart to the progeny his own pecu- 
liarities of color, form and feature. 

The fact is founded in this ; that the male bird is the more vigor- 
ous, and that he imparts the vital principle and governing force. 

These two matings, we think, are all-sufficient for all professional 
poultrymen who cull their chicks carefully and closely, and the 
principle will be found to apply universally and to all varieties. 
With the interminable train of petty details we have nothing to do, 
since the principle will explain what is wise to accept or reject in any 
and all instances of mating. 

Another all-important principle suggests itself at this point and 
one which my distinguished and learned friend, the late Dr. Stone- 
breaker, of Waco, Texas, insisted upon with his usual earnest accur- 
acy and great ability. Reference is made to the full maturity of all 
breeding birds. 

In a series of excellent articles in several poultry periodicals just 
before his death he detailed the experimental facts in support of his 
theory and did much to dissipate the almost universal practice of 
breeding from pullets and cockerels, instead of yearling and two 
year old stock. An impartial consideration of this question warrants 
the conclusion that no standard bird should be bred under eight 
months old. Doubtless, if allowed, the precocious thoroughbred will 
begin to crow and cackle to mate and multiply and reproduce their 



104 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

species at a much earlier age, in fact, a friend of mine set a Buff 
Cochin pullet, hatched in January, upon her own eggs and she 
hatched a fine brood the 23rd of August of the same year. Leghorns 
and Plymouth Rocks lay even earlier, but these precocious pullets 
and cockerels should be kept separate and not allowed to ovulate, by 
often shifting them into new quarters and so allowing them to 
continue their full growth and development on to maturity. 

The whole argument in susport of Dr. Stonebreaker's theory is 
deduced from the physiological fact that nature's operation can not 
be contravened and yet contiue perfectly on to the end and give the 
best possible issue. If nature requires at least one year to fully 
develope a bird its vital resources should not be diverted, or drawn 
upon during thut process. 

We think the axiom self-evident, that nature cannot hold on and 
let go at the same time, and, if her resources are directed to the 
developement of a- bird and meanwhile, those resources be arrested 
by a counter call diverting the vital influence in the work of generat- 
ing the species of the parent bird, the breeding bird must suffer 
from arrested developmement, and stunned in every sense, and the 
progeny from such source must, from necessity, be imperfect and 
deficient in vigor. 

Therefore, in breeding standard specimens, the purpose being to 
attain as nearly as possible to perfection in every sense, the full 
maturity of either one bird or both, is certainly advisable. 

It will readily occur to all as difficult to determine, without positive 
and careful experiments, the relative result in breeding from mature 
and immature yards ; but the intelligent and patient observations of 

Dr. S , enabled him to say as a fact of his experience, that chicks 

bred from pullets and cockerels were vastly less vigorous than 
were the chicks from specimens over one and under three years old. 

We have thought the subject worthy of introduction and believe all 
will be benefitted and appreciate the scientific and practical sugges- 
tions inseparably associated with this subject. It is only right and 
proper for us to go upon record and we cheerfully re-affirm and de- 
fend the faith of our lamented friend. 

Cockerels and pullets 8 or 10 months old crossed with cocks and 
hens are probably old enough, 

The early hatched chicks, say of January, February, March and 
April, but not later than May, are suitable to associate with hens of 



STANDAED AND COMMEECTAL POULTBY CULTURE. 105 

the previous year, or even three year old hens, when they themselves 
are one year old. We believe the two year old cock the best age for 
breeding males for standard specimens. 

Inbreeding demands some certain and reliable assertion either 
against the practice or in its support according as science and exper- 
ience have established the truth. What are the facts ? Inbreeding 
is a necessity if it be true, as some assert, that the first sexual con- 
gress and conception impresses indelibly the features or influence of 
the male upon the female forever ; for surely those hidden influences 
would harrass all our operations and, being completely covert, 
would everywhere confront and confound all accuracy of calculation. 

Every effort at introducing new blood would prove utterly impo- 
tent against the previous impression, or, if the virgin specimen be 
thus first impressed by this outside or alien element, then we should 
start off at a tangent under the auspices of a new influence never to 
be able to return. 

It is, therefore, well thus to make the issue and remark the utter 
antagonism of inbreeding and introducing new blood, if it be true 
that contamination of blood in a bird, can come from copulation. 
Inbreeding, in that event, must be our only security, since no 
mortal ken could know the lnrking love that is stamped upon the 
plastic soul and insured to all the future offspring its own unending 
image. 

But are we f orceed to inbreeding from such a fallacy ? And is this 
asserted contamination a fallacy or a fact. We answer in the name 
of science it is not only false, but it is not even respectable nonsense. 
What is the scientific fact ? All animal existence are propagated 
through ovulation and sexual vitatization. In the case of all mam- 
mals the egg is evolved from the female ovary, just the same as in 
the fowl and further, it is vitalized by copulation just the same in all 
instances ; but in the animal the egg thus vitalized finds its lodgment 
in the maternal womb and there, though the vital circulation is indi- 
rect, though the growth and development of the foetus are affected 
under the auspices of osmosis or the passage back and forth, that is, 
to and from the f cetus through intervening membranes, still the ma- 
ternal brain and blood presides over all and propells all the pro- 
cesses of intra-uterine life. Though the child or animal in the 
womb does give back to the mother's blood the waste material of its 
own body, yet this debrse is dead and is cast out and can not, in the 



106 STANDABD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTKY CtTLTUEE. 

nature of things, contaminate the mother. In order to possibly pro- 
duce such impression it must be living fluid and so enter her circu- 
lation and contribute to cell-construction, or the atomic rebuilding 
of her body. Then, and then only, could the father ingraft himself 
upon the mother through the little life within the womb. The fact 
i. that, the father cannot thus contaminate the mother with the most 
malignant disease. The off-spring will suffer, but the mother 
escape. Why ? Because what the mother imparts to the child is 
imbued with life, but what it gives back is dead matter and incapa- 
ble of harm to her. 

The father, then, cannot contaminate the mammal mother through 
the medium of intra-uterine life. What, then, may be expected oi 
the fowl ? Like the animal, the egg is evolved from the ovary, it 
enters the ovaduct and somewhere in its passage to the outer world 
it is met and vitalized by the electric life principle of the male. It 
continues on, receives its casement or shell and comes forth con- 
taining the essential germ which, subjected to the same conditions 
that the animal egg receives in the womb, which is heat and moisture, 
it germinates and grows into vigorous life. But the fowl's egg never 
germinates within the fowl and so never gives back anything what- 
ever to the mother, but receives the male influence, seals it in a shell 
and, egg and influence and all are expelled together. Thus the egg 
receives the vital influence of the male, but never touches nor tarnishes 
the circulation, nor the physical system of the hen and so contami- 
nation of the blood by copulatiou is a physiological absurdity. It is 
contrary to life's processes. The influence of the male will reach 
only those egg that are evolved in and thrown off from the ovary and 
are in the ovaduct all ripe and ready for the reception .of the vital 
influence ; but beyond these the male influence is actually impotent 
and inoperative by way of copulation, or sexual contact. 

Such is the dictum of physiological science on the subject and 
from which we see that the only possible source left for those per- 
manent impressions to forever influence the breeding of an animal 
or hen must be through mental media, which we are willing to con- 
cede under exceptional circumstances, of strong attachment and 
highly developed and sensitive mental organization, but we can 
scarcely credit theexistance of this deathless devotion, this perman- 
ent impression, this heavenly endowment in a hen. And so we are 
not forced to practice inbreeding from fear of contaminating any 



STANDARD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTBV CULTURE. 107 

particular species upon which we admit a cross. The success of the 
cross, of coarse, is another thing. 

What are the evils of inbreeding ? Does it depress the vital 
forces ? To some extent we think it does. But we think the danger 
in this direction is unduly magnified. When inbreeding is practiced 
and pushed to produce the pure blooded racehorse with his perfect 
symmetry and iron constitution and staying qualities. When we 
practice inbreeding between the parents and progeny of cattle for 
purpose of perpetuating especial merits of milk and butter and 
beef, all of which depends upon strong constitutional capacity, we 
doubt that the dangers of judicious inbreeding for three or four gen- 
erations are worse or half so fatal as the folly of annually introduc- 
ing new blood. 

When we see a vain of fowls breed for 25 years from one line of 
males and refreshed from without only at long intervals and, then 
through the females, and thus continue to enjoy the highest reputa- 
tion and merit for elegance in everything, we are convinced that in- 
breeding is the only safety from going to pieces and destroying any 
strain, especially in color and excellent qualities. 

Of course, continual inbreeding dwarfs and degenerates and, 
therefore, Is wrong, but when the purpose is to reproduce identity 
of type in everything as in pure bred stock, the only possible pro- 
cess by which it can be done is to breed in and in judiciously, intro- 
ducing new females every three or four years of the finest possible 
merit, and as much as possible, like the strain in cultivation. Select 
the new blood only, from the finest standard specimens, of the best 
strains in existence, and then for years again go forward inbreeding 
from the best standard specimens of what we have, that is nearest 
the desired type to which we aim to attain, and so is brought about 
the different forms and features of the same variety of fowls and so 
is secured the best possible result that come from any system of 
standard or pure bred poultry cclture. 

But do not.write for " fowls that are no akin." You will certainly 
hazard a chance of securing a start in the strain you desire. No one 
can tell the result of a cross, and a cross is what is ordered when your 
injunction to the breeder is that, "the birds shall be no akin." We 
think it only necessary to thus suggest the point, and offer the prin- 
ciple, to make the truth apparent that, so many changes as must 
come from the annual introduction of new blood could not but ruin 



108 STANDAED AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CULTUBE. 

the best result. Nature without a miracle must refuse to blend such 
constant, strange and incongruous elements as are bidden in each 
new and, to some extent, improper pair, into one ideal and symme- 
trical whole. Remember, therefore, that while perpetual inbreeding 
is not to be practiced, nor, is it here advised, still the greater danger 
comes from so-called new blood ; and, that all thorough or pure bred 
stock result from inbreeding. 

Again, a pedigree for standard fowls is an imperative necessity, 
because it brings our operations into systematic accuracy and ena- 
bles us to know the actual breeding value of every male bird espec- 
ially. Otherwise everything is guess work and must go wrong. 

The females of every pedigreed pen should be carrefully studied 
as they begin to lay and soon the intelligent observer may readily 
recognize the egg of each particular hen. 

The eggs should be stamped at the nest and when about to hatch a 
separate drawer assigned them in the Incubator and the chicks spec- 
ially marked aud recorded as hatched. If extra care be urged against 
the pedigree system, the counter fact is clear that, better prices will 
be paid for what you can recommend and sell with satisfaction to 
yourself and to your patrons. 

In either, market or pure bred poultry culture, honesty is always 
the best policy. We know of one instance where a pen of poor birds 
were sold and shipped west where expectation was high and the 
whole population had assembled to see the fine fowls, but when they 
came they were poor specimens and the disappointment and disgust 
were universal and did the breeder infinite injury. So our transat- 
lantic breeders have filled several orders for Buff Cochins that would 
be disqualified at any first class show in America, and so American 
breeders are afraid to further hazard the enormous cost and bad 
importation. We would pay the price with pleasure if we could de- 
pend upon securing their finest specimens and this feeling is univer- 
sal and is here suggested as the source of greatest injury to the com- 
merce in fine fowls. 

There cannot possibly arise anything so ruinous to trade as loss of 
confidence, and, the trade in fine fowls rests exclusively on confidence 
and when its sacredness is outraged by receiving a bad specimen, 
both confidence and further commerce are killed. Thus all intelli- 
gent poultrymen should see that violating the confidence of a patron 
re-acts upon and ruins his own reputation and business. 



STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 109 

The commerce in market fowls and chicks is differently conducted 
as the stock is inspected before paid for, in most cases, and consign- 
ments are continually made to one firm and must be found satisfac- 
tory. 

From all the foregoing what shall we conclude ? Does poultry 
culture pay ? If rightly conducted it does beyond the universal be- 
lief. 

And which department yields the greater profit ? Which ever you 
prefer ; both yield the largest returns for care and capital invested of 
any other known industry and the encouraging feature is the demand 
is constantly increasing. 

The food supply cannot be surfeited. If a few fowls pay well, 
enlarged numbers pay equally well, if rightly managed. 

Like every productive industry this must pay near populous sec- 
tions and cities where markets absorb such food supplies. There, 
astonishing prices are paid for tender broilers from December until 
May and June. Often 50 or 70 cents per pound for chicks that weigh 
from two to three pounds, fat and fine. These can be furnished by 
the Incubator and brooder system at any time and in any quan- 
tity when once prepared. Preparation and expense must be incurred 
in every occupation ; in this we are not utterly dependent ob the 
action of the elements as in agriculture. Whether it rains, or not 
the poultryman is equally indifferent. His operations go on under 
cover controlled by agencies of which he is master ; and man must 
eat and so his supplies must sell. Unlike the professions, or merch- 
andise, or agriculture, or all the vast and varied avocations with 
which the human family have become more familiar. Poultry 
culture is not so subject to contingencies. It isn't overdone. There 
is a demand for it and the demand is almost infinite. The new 
South and California, because of the mildness of their climate, are 
especially suited for this commerce. Disease has been the dread, 
but on this we trust these pages will prove that once free from ver- 
min and epidemic ills, and with the facilities afforded by modern 
invention, poultry culture cannot fail to engage the business brain, 
the active energies, and even the enthusiasm of the American produ- 
cer. 

A gentleman recently assured me he realized a net profit of $7.00 
each from 300 hens. Another instance, he raised 3,000 ducks by the 
Incubator process, which weigh 3% pounds at ten weeks old and for 



110 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL. 



which he realizes forty cents, live weight. 

Regulated as prescribed in this publication, mated and managed 
as herein advised an early Asiatic pullet affording from 70 to 90 eggs 
in six months must average from 20 to 25 chicks and these selling at 
from 40 to 70 cents per pound and costing 5 cents per pound must 
afford a net yield of over $10 per hen. 

A poultry farm of 8 to ten acres, with 500 or 1,000 hens, carefully 
managed near some populous city cannot yield less than $5,000 oi 
$8,000, net annual profit. 




STANDARD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY CULTURE. Ill 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE DIFFICULTIES THAT THIS INDUSTRY HAS TO OVERCOME. THE GREAT- 
EST OF ALL IS PREJUDICE. THE REASON. THE AUTHOR AND FARMER. 
COMPARING NOTES. RELATIVE PROFITS FROM POULTRY AND AGRI- 
CULTURE WITH EQUAL CAPITAL. THE RESULT ATTAINED BY POULTRY 
MEN IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES. THE IMPORTANCE 
OF DUCK CULTURE. THE PRACTICAL MISSION OF THE INCUBATOR ON 
THE FARM AND FOR DOMESTIC USE. THE PRACTICAL WORK OF HATCH- 
ING AND HANDLING YOUNG CHICKS OF ALL KINDS, AND FOR ALL PUR- 
POSES. THE UNDERLIEING PRINCIPLES THE SAME. WHERE TO 
PLACE AN INCUBATOB AND WHY. THE VALUE OF VENTrLATION. THE 
PEOPEB DEGREE OF TEMPERATURE FOR A HATCHING HOUSE. THE 
EARLY REMOVAL OF THE CHICKS FROM THE INCUBATOB, AND WHY? 
PURPOSE OF THE GREAT NURSERY. HOW HEATED. HOW VENTI- 
LATION SHOULD BE EFFECTED AND BEGULATED. ESSENTIALS FOR 
'THE CHICKS. HOW MUCH SPACE ALLOTTED TO EACH. THE PHI- 
LOSOPHY OF SAND, AS A RETAINER OF HEAT AND AS AN ABSORBMENT. 
HOW OFTEN CHICKS SHOULD BE FED AND WATEBED. HOW THE FEED 
SHOULD BE GIVEN. POULTBY CULTUBE ESPECIALLY ADAPTED TO THE 
PACIFIC COAST AND TO THE GEIflAL CLIMATE OF THE SOUTH. 



THE difficulty that poultry culture is compelled to overcome 
before she is admitted into full fellowship with other and 
older industries is prejudice. It is difflcnlt to divest a 
man of prejudice by argument or by facts and figures ; he 
must know the thing and must of necessity, delay all action until 
others realize the merited results of more faith in figures, more 
energy and self reliance. Poultry raising must be boldly admitted 
to the same opportunities that are extended to agriculture and the 
rearing of all other stock. No sane man can hope to succeed in a 
business for which he is unprepared and of which he is ashamed. 
And, need we wonder at the amazement and incredulity of the 



112 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

masses, who are just awakening to the serious consideration of the 
high claims of this industry ? Poultry Culture is a new industry. It 
was degraded for ages by inattention and neglect, because it was 
then impossible to make it profitable. Then it had no literature, 
no light, no scientific assistance, and what could agriculture and the 
arts do to-day without the assistance of science and invention that 
have also revolutionized all aspects of labor. These have actually 
blown the inspiring breath of modern scientific progress upon the 
dead body of ancient poultry culture and it stands up among the liv- 
ing, lively industries and commands respect. But it is not the 
poultry culture of the past, that must be investigated and controlled, 
if at all, on scientific principles that cannot be ignored. Persons that 
have killed and dressed chickens almost ever since they escaped from 
the cradle, have seen the sand in the chickens gizzard and yet never 
thought of putting sand in their food ; and yet we assure you it will 
often assist digestion and check a diarrhoea when all other agents fail. 
Of course objections are easier than investigation ; and if persons 
are sealed against argument, if facts and figures can make no im- 
pression, then poultry culture, nor culture of any kind will likely 
hold out to such, an helping hand ; but to such as are willing to weigh 
the issues and be honest with poultry culture and fix, for its demands 
as for farming, give it confidence and capital, due dilligence, time 
and talent ; conducting it as an enterprise that demands intelligent 
study, then poultry culture will surpass farming. 

A few years since with $500 invested in fancy fowls I sold $800 
worth, cleared $500, and had left over for stock twice as many fowls. 

A rich farmer, near me, with $20,000 invested, made less clear 
money after charging up everything against us both, than I did ; he 
with &20 000 and I with $500 invested. Suppose I had half his money 
to devote to poultry culture to best advantage. 

I know a gentleman who quit a $5,000 law practice, bought 160 
acres of land, built and stocked it, all from 45 Light Brahma hens in 
less than 10 years. 

A gentleman in Indiana worked for 50 cents per day, bought a pair 
of fowls, began poultry culture and within a few years bought and 
stocked a fine firm and now carries on a poultry commerce worth 8 
or $10,000 per year. 

Another gentleman in the east began about the same way and now 
sells $8,000 worth of fine fowls annually. 



STANDABD AND COMMEECIAL POULTEY CULTUEE. 113 

Another cultivates exclusively by the Incubator and has cleared 
over $7 on each hen per annum and employed over 300 hens. 

Again, I am in position to prove that the artificial cultivation of 
ducks for market will, and do yield over $1 net profit on each young 
duck, and that any good duck will lay over 80 eggs in the course of 
five months. 

Duck eggs hatch remarkably well and they seldom ever die a nat- 
ural death. Thev will eat everything and require no water except 
such as chickens drink from a fountain. Ducks are great foragers 
on grass, and better still, on green young clover. They grow faster 
and develope infinitely better by restraining them from the pond, 
just as chickens and pigs and all stock do better and fatten faster 
when restrained from rambling in the fields. 

We think it safe to calculate on 80 per cent, of duck eggs hatching 
in a first class Incubator and it is more than safe to count on the sur- 
vival of fully 75 per cent, of all that are hatched and so if I claim 
that a good large pair of Pekin Ducks can be made to yield a net 
profit of $30 in six months, I intend no outrage upon pnblic credul- 
ity but am certain it can be done. I am certain I am too low in my 
estimate, but, am careful to be safe. These stalwart young creatures 
weigh 3% to 4 pounds within 80 days from leaving the shell, and are 
certainly the finest of all food. They readily sell in cities at from 30 
to 40 cents per pound early in the season. They are usually sold live 
weight after being bled. The meat is most delicious and once intro- 
duced is in great demand. 

I need scarcely magnify the mission of the Incubator further ; but, 
hope what we have said may be of service to all who embark in 
breeding fowls or chicks for any purpose. The underlieing princi- 
ciples apply equally to poultry culture, either for the fancy or for 
food. Thus'f ar we have had in view the hatching of chicks for com 
merce, may we suggest from experience that the hatching of a thou- 
sand chicks for home consumption, is anything but labor lost. If the 
restaurants can pay from 50 cents to $1.50 for a niceyoung broiler of 
from one to two pounds weight, a half a dozen of such savory food 
every day for domestic use will go far towards making the farmer a 
friend to the Incubator, and Gentlemen, may I suggest to you, as a 
physician, that you eat to much pork and not enough fresh tender 
food like these very young broiled birds. If these enormous prices 
can be paid in cities, certainly the farmer can afford to own and 



114 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CUIiTUBE. 

operate his Incubator and live sumptuously on these luxuries that 
cost him only the healthful fun of hatching them and feeding for six 
or eight weeks. I have tried and can consciously recommend it. We 
expect within ten years to find the Incubator as freely used on the 
farm and wherever there is a flock of fowls, as the sewing machine 
and other inventions that lighten labor and conduce to the health 
and happiness of life and the luxury of cheaper, better living. 

We come now to the practical work of hatching and handling young 
chickens of any and all kind and for any and all purposes, since the 
process is identical in every particular and demands the same feed 
and care whether the chicks are intended for market or exhibition. 
An Incubator should be placed in a large light and comfortable place, 
well ventilated and entirely free from wind and water. Why ? Be- 
cause light is essential that the operator may see in turning his eggs, 
trimming the lamps and attending to details. 

Ventilation is absolutely necessary, because the lamps are burn- 
ing and the eggs also giving off poisonous erases, that soon load the 
air and affect the health of the incubating chicks in the eggs. 
Hence a cellar unless it possess these important requisites, is unsuit- 
ed. The temperature should never be below 65 degrees in a hatching 
house, because, when the valve opens and the outside air enters 
among the eggs, the chill is injurious ; and, when the eggs are taken 
out and aired for five or ten minutes, each day, after the first ten 
days, the air of course, should not be too severely cold. The proper, 
temperature, therefore, for a hatching house is between 65 and 75 
degrees. 

The process of incubation, so far as what goes on in the eggs, has 
been fully considered. The directions for operating the machine 
must always accompany the sale ; for, since no two machines are 
alike, any attempt to cover the action of all in a book would be 
burdensome. But the chicks hatched by all require the same atten- 
tion, and should be removed from the Incubator as soon as dry, to 
avoid the poisonous gas that is generated during and after the hatch- 
ing while the chick is drying. Very young chicks, thus long confined, 
are subject to very unhealthy air to say the least, and must be bene- 
fited by early removal to a place of equal comfort and pure, warm 
air. We insist on this point because, whereas, it was one of our es- 
sentials to successful incubation and the philosophy fully set forth 
in that connection, it is scarcely necessary to suggest the importance 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 115 

of applying the principle still, when the little chicks are further 
along in life. 

The shells removed and burned and the chicks removed and care- 
fully and comfortably quartered in the brooder at a temperature of 
about 100 ; for twenty or thirty hours, give no feed as the absorbing 
yolk within the chick is all sufficient during that time. The building 
or nursery being divided into pens or appartments of ten feet square. 
may be heated by a bottom heat brooder or by circulating hot water 
through underground pipes or by both combined. The Success and 
Perfect Hatcher companies do all such work cheap and reliably. 

Stoves are constructed for heating such houses with hot air or 
water, the water being better because it holds the heat longer. These 
stoves are self -feeding, of different sizes and power, and range in 
price from $50 to $300. 

Ventilation should come trom the top of the building, because 
there the heated air and gas meet and modify, the fresh, heavier and 
colder air. The Electric Ventilator constructed on precisely the 
same principle that controls the heat in a?i Incubator would be the 
most reliable register of the requisite temperature. The Incubator 
manufacturing companies will be glad to give estimates for such 
work. 

The main purpose of the great nursery should be to furnished the 
chicks perfect cleanliness, comfort, pure air and water, and sufficient 
to eat. When the weather is dry and not too cold, the chicks delight 
to go out through an opening into the enclosed adjoining yard. 
They do so in quite cold weather for a short time when they attain to 
four or five weeks old. It invigorates their energies and appetite 
and should be encouraged fully to the extent of their inclination. 
Experience alone and intelligent observation will adjust in harmony 
the practical operations of this industry, The purpose aimed at in 
these pages is to indicate the general principles, the essentials, that 
are applicable everywhere and leave to each latitude and locality and 
to each person the carrying out of the lesser practical details accord- 
ing to the intended extent of his operations and his pleasure and 
purse. 

It is plain to see that it would be impossible to prescribe details 
for any duty unless limited in extent and in everything to one par- 
ticular plan. The essentials for incubation, we feel, are fully under- 
stood. We feel too, that thus understood, the mind takes hold of the 



116 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

whole question in a broader, better and more tangible shape ; and so 
we shall now proceed to consider briefly the essentials of the chick- 
ens : 

First : Then, how much space should be allotted to these little 
chicks ? We ourselves have succeeded admirably with one foot to 
each chick until four weeks old. A house, therefore, 24x100 feet v/ith 
a four feet passage through center, the sides subdivided into ten pens 
on each side 10 feet square, will amply accommodate 2,000 chicks 
until they are four weeks old. These pens should be supplemented 
by runs, into which they open when warm enough to let them out, 
even for an airing. When the whole nursery is quite warm these 
young chicks take great delight in sallying out, soon to return to the 
warm floor of the nursery. The floor should always be covered deep 
with sand ; because it maintains high heat when once thoroughly 
warmed and so can be relied upon during the cold changes of night 
and again, sand is the most perfect absorbent and so keeps the chicks 
quarters clean automatically ; that is the chicks themselves keep 
their quarters clean by scratching the offal deep into the absorbing 
sand. Of course, in due time, the sand must be sifted and supplied 
by more that is fresh ; but, this process materially lessons the labor 
and conduces to the evenness of the temperature and, therefore, to 
the health and success in careing for the chicks. With these bottom 
heat brooders, where the chicks can retreat from too high or too 
low a temperature, where the feet and body are kept comfortable, 
where ventilation is rightly regulated, where chicks will not need nor 
want to crowd, and where everything is systematically attended to 
the chicks will not die if rightly fed. Thus for about four or six 
weeks, the chicks should be kept at a temperature, at first of 100,° 
and then after several days, declining gently down to 98, 90 and 70°. 
The time at which chicks should be allowed such temperature depends 
especially upon their condition. If they fledge out fast and pass 
rapidly over the first pin feather critical period, and the first feathers 
come promptly out to their protection, then they may be moved at 
any time when thus conditioned, to larger but similiar and somewhat 
cooler quarters ; but, the change of temperature must be guaged or 
gradual, and never allowed below 70 to 80° in the house. If the 
chicks incline to cooler air, allow them the liberty and choice, either 
of house or runs when the weather is dry. So much for temperature 
and how to preserve it and the right degree. 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 117 

If the enterprise aims at larger outlay, or more contracted opera- 
tions, the apparatus for heating and circulating the water may be ac- 
cordingly increased or diminished, and the same adjustment of all 
the essentials, including grounds, breeding birds, buildings, Incuba- 
tors, brooders and all. 

Chicks should be fed and watered every three hours during the day- 
time, the last feed being as late as 8 or 9 o'clock at night. The food 
should be grouned or crushed and cooked or softened, but, not too 
wet. The feed should be given warm, but care should be taken, that 
it be not too hot, as food thus fine and scalded, long retains the heat. 
For this and other reasons, given in these forward pages, we urge 
that the cold, dry feed of corn, usually ordered at night, be set aside; 
and the warm, steamed feed at night be substituted ; because it con- 
veys free heat into the system at once ; and, because it digests more 
easily and rapidly and, therefore, the same quantity of food genera- 
ates more animal heat, and taxes the digestive strength less in the 
operation. We deem these reasons sufficiently self-evident to need 
no further argument. What shall be fed, we have already fully set 
forth in our articles on food in the earlier chapters of this publica- 
tion, to which the reader is respectfully referred. 

It will be observed that in all this enterprise the question of tern, 
perature plays the largest part. 

For this reason our plans have been presented from the stand- 
point of the cold North, where nature is ice-bound and bleak during 
that portion of the year when the highest prices prevail for these 
tender and tempting broilers. But the suggestion is pertinent that 
this encouraging industry is especially adapted to the genial climate 
of the Pacific coast and the southern portion of the United States. 
If home prices in the South are less than in New England and the 
populous cities of the North, ice and refrigerating cars will overcome 
time of transit and the distance of travel and so the author com- 
mends to all, but especially to the citizens of the South, Commercial 
Poultry Culture. 



118 STANDABD AND COMMEKCIAL POULTBY CULTUBE. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE COST OF BAISING BEOrLEES. EVEETTHTNG WEIGHED AND WOBKED 
OUT FEOM POSITIVE EXPEBIENCE, AND CAEEEUL FACTS AND EIGTJBES. 
THE CONCLUSION BEACHED AGAIN BY THE AUTHOB, THAT THE POSSI- 
BILITIES ABE $10 FOB EACH HEN EMPLOYED IN COMMEBCIAL POUL- 
TBY CULTUEE UNDEB THE BEST POSSIBLE CIBCUMSTANCES. 




(E have on several occasions kept the best record we could 
of the cost of various flocks of chicks from hatching up 
to three months old and found the average did not vary- 
but the smallest fraction from five cents per pound for 
feed. We have instituted careful inquiry and find the experience 
of others very similar to our own. A friend furnishes us the most 
elaborate experimentation published in the January number of the 
Poultry Keeper, 1885 and which is so nearly coincident with my 
own calculations that with perfect confidence in its accuracy we 
quote it in full : 

" But few persons have familiarized themselves with the weight of 
chicks at different ages and in order that we may derive some accur- 
ate idea of weights from the shell to more advanced age we submit 
the following which we think will be of special practical interest. 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 



119 



The subjoined experiments being made to get at the exact truth. The 
result is as follows and may be readily verified : 

The egg weighs, when fresh 2 ounces. 
The weight of new hatched chicks 1% ounces, 
" " " chick 1 week old 2 



2 ' 


« 4 


3 " 


" G% 


4 ' 


" 10 


6 ' 


" 14 


6 ' 


" 183^ 


7 ' 


" 23^ 


8 ' 


" 28 


9 ' 


" 32- 


10 ' 


" 36 


11 ' 


" 41 



"The chicks experimented with were Plymouth Rocks mixed with 
other breeds. The result will show heavier weight if the high grade 
cock be used with the full blooded Cochin or Brahma hen." 

" They were fed mostly on a mixture of bran, oat meal and corn 
meal moistened with milk or water and baked, sometimes nearly 
cooked with boiling water. Whole wheat and skimmed milk cheese 
served as a variety during the first 4 weeks ; and the cake was some- 
times made richer by the addition of a little animal meal (pulverized 
bone and meat.) Out of quite a flock not one chick died from 
disease. They were fed very regularly, three times a day ; and all 
they would eat up clean. A flock of which increased two pounds in 
weight a day, consumed less than six pounds of corn meal ; or its 
equivalent in other food, in 24 hours, and what vegetable or animal 
matter they could pick i?p, which in spite of our limited range did 
not appear to be very much, at least they always appeared hungry 
when they came for their meal." 

The error in this experiment was in giving the chicks unlimited 
range since they derived from the constant exercise only an appetite 
for food which, instead of going to make fat and weight was wasted 
in their rambles for food. The better plan is restricted pasture and 
feeding every three or four hours. 

From the above, however, we see that the actual expense of making 
one pound of " spring chicken " was in this case not over 4 cents. 
The market price in cities during July varied between twenty and 



120 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

twenty-eighr cents. 

" We might have forced these chicks faster by giving them greater 
variety of diet but did not attempt to force them. Or we might have 
grown them slower and with less expense, but with longer time had 
we let them shift for themselves. There were no grass hoppers. Let 
us analyze the weights and notice the ratio of gain. 

The first week the chick did not quite double in weight : but the 
second week it doubled exactly. 

The third week, though not doubling in weight, the gain was 
greater than during the second week and for some cause the ratio 
was not equal to that before or after the third week, the gain being 
only 2 V4 ounces, while during the fourth week the increase was 3% 
ounces. The fifth week the gain is still greater and the ratio is given 
below : 

Chicks newly hatched 1% ounces. 
" gained first week % " 
u << 2 " 2 " 

" « 3 .< 2 }.{ 

" " 4 " 3> 2 ' " 

« « 5 « 4 « 

« (I g u ^ 

<• " 7 " 5 " 

8 " 4% " 

9 " 5 

" " 10 " 4 " 

11 " 5 

The greatest gain considering the age was made when the chick 
had attained the age of seven weeks, the chick then weighing 23% 
ounces or very close to 1% pounds. When nine weeks old the weight 
was exactly two pounds — 32 ounces. 

Although the weights here given refer to that of a single chick, the 
experiment was made with a small brood and an average arrived at. 
The term " chick" being here used simply for convenience and we 
call particular attention to the fact that the expense of making each 
pound was 4 cents, but it may be repeated that they were not forced 
and could have been made to weigh a little more, or by attempting 
to make three cents grow a pound of " chicken " the growth would 
have been less. 

The quality of food is the secret of growth and we have always 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CULTUBE. 121 

claimed and demonstrated that from the time the chick is hatched 
until it is grown, the cost per pound is 5 cents as a maxium limit, but 
if the five cents be not judiciously expended it will not produce half 
a pound. 

The paramount consideration, therefore, in commercial poultry 
culture is the vigor and size of the breeding stock, the quality of food 
for the fowls and chicks and the judicious manner of feeding. 

The profit depends upon the season of the year when the chicks 
are hatched ; about the 15th of January is the beginning of the 
broiler season which ends about the first of June." 

This accords with our own experience and so necessitates our be- 
ginning the process of incubation about the first of October or No- 
vember. 

The prices are highest during March and April, and chicks that 
weigh half a pound retail at from 75 cents to $1.00. Then the chicks 
that weigh three-quarters of a pound are preferred, which are fol- 
lowed by those weighing one pound. 

The following will be found the safest rule for estimating the 
prices of young chicks at these periods. The sum of 75 cents is the 
price to be expected for a chick from a half a pound weight until it 
is six months of age. This uniform price runs in this manner : A 
half pound chicks sells at $1.50 per pound, or 75 cents per chick. A 
three-quarter pound chicks sells at $1.00 per pound or 75 cents per 
chick. A pound chick sells for 75 cents. A one and a half pound 
chicks sells at 50 cents per pound or 75 cents per chick, and so in- 
creases in weight and decreases in price until the chick weighs 6 
pounds and sells ot 12>£ cents a pound or 75 cents per chick. Of 
course the prices sometimes vary, but we can safely assert that if one 
half pound broilers reach the market in March and the chicks 
brought in continually until the season for " spring chicken " is over 
there will be no difficulty about prices. The figures given are retail 
prices for one dozen chicks. 

Observe that in the experiments given the chicks weighed 10 ounces 
when 4 weeks old. The cost up to that age is just two eents ; we 
throw off the two ounces for a margin and leave the weight 8 ounces 
at one month old. Now let us suppose that, instead of selling the 
chick at 75 cents, we leave a great margin in price and call it 25 
cents. We will then have 23 cents clear profit from an expense of 2 
cents for food. 



122 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

In the experiments, however, the chicks gained a quarter of a 
pound the next week and while weighing 10 ounces, at 4 weeks old, 
reached 14 ounces when rive weeks of age, having gained a quarter of 
a pound the fifth week and as the ratio was more than a quarter of a 
pound each week thereafter, often reaching five ounces, we may 
safely claim that up to the age of three months a chick mill gain at 
least a quarter of a pound per week, as follows : 

Chicks 4 weeks old % pound 



5 ' 


' " X 


6 


" 1 


7 


1 " 1% 


8 


" i}4 


9 


: » 1% 


10 


« 2 


11 


i u 2H 


12 


t .( oi, 


13 


« 2 % 


14 


" 3 



In the experiment the chicks weighed two pounds at eight weeks 
old, but we have allowed two extra weeks for a safe average for an 
entire brood, as some of the chicks may be sickly or inferior, but we 
could have easily put down that a chick will weigh three pounds 
when three months old or even more for we have often had them to 
weigh four pounds at that age. 

Another experiment which we have made previous to the one cop- 
ied above demonstrated that chicks double in weight every 10 days 
until they are 40 days old, but such rule is not inf alliable, as we find 
the gain greater at some periods than at others, but the cost of food 
for the second experiment was one cent a week until the chick was 
10 weeks old, when the expense increased and so did the weights. It 
is admitted however that the chicks were not as well fed and provid- 
ed for as they should have been. The cost was of course less than 
one cent until the fifth week, which was exactly one cent and when 
the tenth week was reached the total amount expended for each chick 
was exactly 10 cents for 10 weeks, the small amount eaten the first 
four weeks leaving a surplus which was added to the latter period of 
the experiment. The weight of a chick at the end of 6 weeks was 
exactly 18 ounces or a pound and two ounces, the cost being 6 cents 



STANDAED AND COMMEEOIAL POUXTBY CUIiTTTBE. 123 

Let us now look at the table and notice how it compares with the 
others, we doubling the weight of the chicks every ten days : 
Chicks at hatching 1% ounces, 

10 days old 2% " 

20 " " 5 

30 " " 10 " 

40 •< " 20 
Now compare it with the first result which we gave in weeks and 
we find that in three weeks the chick weighed Q}4 ounces while in the 
case just mentioned the chick in 20 days weighed five ounces. We 
are satisfied with the diff ereuce or rather the close result. In thirty 
days the chick doubled from five ounces to 10 onnces. In the result 
by weeks we find that the chick four weeks old weighed 10 ounces, 
only two days difference in ages between them. In 40 days the chick 
weighed 20 ounces, having doubled again in 10 days. In the result by 
weeks, we find the chick at seven weeks old weighing 23V ounces 
and as the two days difference is something, it partially compensates 
for the heavier weight ; but we have demonstrated by two different 
experiments that a chick will double in weight every 10 days until it 
is 40 days old and that though not doubleing after that time the ratio 
of increase is, however, very rapid. It is conclusive then that a 
chick will gain at least one quarter of a pound every week on an av- 
erage, until it is three months old. 

In one experiment we found the cost of food four cents a pound 
and in the other we made it more but as the cost of food for the six 
weeks was six cents and the chicks weighed about 18 ounces, which is 
one pound and two ounces, the cost was a fraction over five cents a 
pound, but the ratio was reduced as the chicks advanced in age, as 
the gain in flesh was greater and hence in order to leave a fair 
margin we can confidently state that the maximum cost of a pound 
of chicken from the shell to maturity is five cents, but maturity 
means the moment a chick becomes a fowl, as it is easy to see that 
a fowl when once it has reached the limit of its weight, may become 
five years old and yet not weigh an ounce more but consume any 
amount of food. Thus young poultry can be produced the cheapest 
and with considerable less trouble and a better market." 

Suppose then we are fully prepared with houses, runs, heating ap- 
paratus, machinery for cooking our food and every contrivance for 
the better care and comfort of the fowls and chicks, suppose that 



124 STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

our parent stock be Brahmas and Cochins with high grade cocks as 
advised in these pages, suppose our process of cooked food be en- 
riched with ground meat from such dead animals as can often be 
secured as a gift and we feed these chicks every three or four hours 
what they will freely eat. The truth is irresistable that we should 
gain much in weight at the tender age of four weeks and be enabled 
to market them before they were large enough to occupy much space 
and at a net profit of from 40 to 70 cents per pound. Now we will 
suppose that our pullets lay 80 eggs each in six months, and that is a 
very low estimate since Mrs. Judie's Light Brahma pullets, advertis- 
ed in this book, exhibits an egg record of over 90 each in a little over 
five months, we will suppose that we hatch and raise one half of these 
eggs into vigorous chicks, and sell them at from GO to 70 cents per 
chick at four weeks old, the net profits per hen thus accrueing, must 
closely approximate $15 or $20, but, barring all accident and leaving 
the largest of margins that seriousness and honesty could ask, we 
think we shall not be criticised as uncandid nor extravagent in calcu- 
lating the actual profits of commercial poultry culture at $10 per hen 
during a period of six months, if planned and prosecuted as here ad- 
vised. 

We think from the foregoing, data may be furnished to enable all 
to see this subject and estimate its worth. 

We therefore close the consideration of this department of poultry 
culture in the honest belief that it promises more than any other 
known industry for the labor and capital required in this enterprise. 




STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTUBE. 125 



CHAPTER XVI. 



A POULTRY FARM FOB EGGS. ITS REQUIREMENTS. HOW DISTINGUISHED 
FROM THE OTHER TWO DEPARTMENTS OF POULTRY CULTURE. ITS 
ESSENTIAL OUT LAY. THE AMOUNT OF LAND AND WHAT KIND. THE 
KIND OF BUILDINGS FOR 1,000 HENS. THE VARIETY OF HENS. 
HOW TO MANAGE. HOW TO ECONOMIZE. THE QUESTION OF THE 
MANURE. ROOSTS AND NEST. HOW TO PRESERVE THE EGGS. THE 
"havanna method" A FRAUD. THE ONLY TRUE PLAN OF PRE- 
SERVING EGGS. THE AMOUNT OF EGGS 1,000 HENS WILL LAY. THE 
PRICE TO BE EXPECTED FOR EGGS IN JANUARY AND FEBBUABY. THE 
PBOFITS OF THE EGG FABM. CONCLUSION. 



A POULTRY farm for eggs exclusively : We have classi- 
fied the natural divisions of a poultry farm under the 
caption of a poultry farm for commercial or market 
poultry ; a poultry farm for thoroughbred fowls and 
a poultry farm for eggs ; and having considered the first two 
in their somewhat intimate association, as goverened by the 
principles that apply to careful poultry culture in general, pointing 
out the exceptions and essential distinctions between the two depart- 
ments of the industry, we come now to offer only a few considera- 
tions that shall include the third and last department, viz. a poultry 
farm for eggs. 

If we cannot offer such fascinating figures in this as in the possibil- 
ities that fill the other fields, fill them with facts, fill them with ex- 
perimental demonstrations that drive out all doubt, if the egg farm 
be modest in comparison and content with its revenue, it has in its 
favor a few important facts that merit our consideration and its in- 
troduction to the full fraternity of the other departments of the great 
poultry industry. 

In the first place a poultry fasm for eggs requires but little capi- 
tal. That: then is a solid virtue. Let us specify. We need in this 



128 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

no heating machinery, no division runs, no cocks to keep apart, no 
Incubator nor brooder, nor any expense of advertising or exhibiting 
which costs so heavily in the other departments of market and fancy 
poultry culture. These heavy drafts done away, the actual expense 
of this last and easiest enterprise is certainly very modest. 

We have nothing to do with male birds and so escape all rules and 
regulations of mating and expense of sub-divisions, forests of fences 
and their great expense. 

We require a two-horse shelling and grinding machine to crush our 
corn, oates, barley and cereal food and a chaldron for heating water 
to scald the food. Bran and shipstuff can be bought ready for use 
and suitable to mix with other ground food as good and cheaper than 
wheat. 

Oyster shell and bone meal can be bought as cheap as we can pre- 
pare them and so we escape the care and cost of the process. We 
have proposed to ourselves to offer at the last of this love feast with 
our friends the best of our book, and, if it shall be blest in its mis. 
sion in calling away from the other over crowded industries the 
capital and confidence required in this, if the great producing classes 
of my countrymen shall be incited from what we have said to serious- 
ly consider this question and decide to embark in this business and 
remove the stigma from this " granary of the world " implied in the 
annual importation from foreign countries of over 16,000,000 dozens 
of eggs to he consumed in this country, we shall feel that full satis- 
faction that flows from honest patriotic services to country and 
human kind. 

We need perhaps ten acres of ground for our pasture as we shall 
call it instead of a yard or pen. Our house should be built in the 
center of this clover field which should be set in the midst of an or- 
chard. We need the shade and the hens will help the trees by eating 
all the insects and so we cultivate a double crop. We select for our 
purpose say 1,000 hens and assign them to this clovered orchard of 
ten acres, surrounded by high and heavily barbed wire set closely 
together to keep out intruders. In the center we build our house. 
This house can bo built very crude and cheap or very elegant and 
costly, but the idea kept constantly in view all through this book has 
been to present this subject in its cheapest best and most economi- 
cal aspect otherwise we should have ordered our entire roof of glass 
and indicated other elegant outlay in keeping, but we doubt that 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 127 

spending money for display beyond the actual necessity and come 
fort of the situation can be justified in ourselves much less can it be 
defended in advice to others. 

The question then in this connection is, how can we accommodate 
with safety and comfortable quarters 1,000 hens ? The main house 
should be 300 x 12 feet making 3, GOO square feet. The plan should 
be the box house or pine plank nailed upright to sills and plate, 
roof sloping oneway, this requires no frame nor rafters as the roof 
which should consist of pine plank sheeting may be nailed at each 
end to the plates and supported in the center by two rows of string- 
ers, 2x4 pieces, running parallel and four feet apart the full length 
of the building. These rest the roof in the center and the plates at 
the ends. So stayed, supported and fastened, the roof forms the top 
of the box and renders it firm and reliable and saves all framework 
and material. This roof should be covered with 2-ply tarred felt and 
graveled. The front or higher side of this house should be 8 feet and 
look to the north and the lower side 5 feet high and look to the south. 
This would let the roof slope to the south. Then set the roof as 
thickly as need be with large sash of glass for perfect light which 
would also contribute much to the warmth. Then on the north side, 
the higher side of the house, build a shed ten feet wide and the full 
length of the building, let it join the main building and its roof slope 
north and be covered as the building by tarred felt and gravel, this 
would protect them from the north wind and give 3,000 more feet, 
6,600 square feet in both building and shed so combined. The com- 
munication between the two apartment could be made through doors. 
The floor of both buildings should be made of fine rock down to 
the depth of four inches, filled in with sand and covered with cement. 
This is necessary to keep the hens from scratching holes in the dirt 
floor but more especially to keep minks from entering at night and 
cutting the throats of 50 or 100 hens. The floor then covered deep 
with sand absorbs the manure and this sanded .guano will sell 
for four times as much as will pay for all the sand, its hauling and 
handling. 

Th~ nests should be so constructed as not to take up the room 
within the house and so should be built in the shed near the ground 
against the partition and entered from the main building through 
holes cut through the partition and so letting the hen enter the nest 
from the main building. 



128 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL. 

The plan of the nests should be a long box running the fall length 
of the building, partitioned so that each nest would be 16 inches or 
a foot square, depending upon whether large or small hens were used. 
The eggs to be. gathered from the shed by lifting the top of the nest 
which might be made to hinge open. 

Other plans present themselves to me and still others will be sug- 
gested to others, and, bear in mind that all the plans that I offer are 
not at all arbitary but simply suggestive and such as commend 
themselves for simplicity and economy. The purpose being to be 
practical to make money. The roosts should run the full length of 
the building if necessary and consist of a folding frame attached to 
the south inner side of the shed, so constructed by hinges that each 
morning each section of the frame roost may be folded up and fas- 
tened against the side of the wall to which it is attached and let down 
again at night and so be always ready when wanted at night and al- 
ways out of the way wheen not needed during the day. Thus each 
morning the roosts may be raised and the droppings be gathered 
with a small amount of sand with a shovel and barreled ready for 
shipping when full. 

This much for our houses and contents except the water and 
feed. The former should be furnished from an ample cistern and 
pump within one end of the building supplied from the vast amount 
of roofing and the water pumped fresh for the hens in a suitable 
trough, three or four times a day inside the house in winter and out- 
side in summer. The ground, steamed food fed in shallow troughs 
in the same way. 

The ventilation should come from the highest point in the house, 
namely, its junction with the shed, and, where the air is allowed to 
enter the descent should be broken by a partial loft to avoid the evil 
influence of the least draft upon the fowls. Watchfulness and intel- 
ligence are requisite to decide when the fowls are comfortable and 
healthful. 

We come now in order to consider what varieties are best for this 
business ? We want a fowl that will lay the most eggs possible, that 
will -eat the least amount possible, that will not become broody, that 
are extremely hardy, that will diffuse themselves all over the ten 
acres of ground, that will not lay about and get too fat for this use. 
What fowl will fill the full measure of this requirement ? We want 
a fowl at the same time of sufficient size that when we want to fatten 



STANDAED AND COMMEBCIAL POULTBY CULTTJKE. 129 

it in the fall for market, just about the period of moulting, it will 
weigh about 6 or 7 pounds, net. This must force our selection to a 
cross between the Leghorns and Asiatics or to the Plymouth Rocks, 
pure. But are we compelled to an annual sale of the whole thousand 
hens and replacing them with pullets ? And shall we make or lose 
by such annual sales ? We are obliged to sell unless we can depend 
upon the non-setting integrity of our hens the second summer and 
this can only be claimed as applicable to the Leghorn hens and so 
the Leghorns must be our choice unless we annually sell off the entire 
stock, for no other variety can be depended upon for two successive 
seasons. And if it be found advisable to fatten and market just be- 
fore moulting to escape the dangers from cholera among so many 
hens then we do not want the Leghorn on account of its being too 
small and because it will not lay any more eggs the first season, then 
the Buff Cochin or Brahma. If the size or weight of the egg entered 
into the question of price, then the Asiatics or high grade birds 
would be much the best, but so long as eggs are sold simply for so 
much per dozen, irrespective of size, then the Leghorn eggs are as 
profitable as any, and so these questions are introduced for practical 
consideration and we think fully illustrates the importance of what 
we aim at in this work, namely, of presenting every side of the sub- 
ject under the caption of what we may truly call " The Principles of 
Poultry Culture." We are inclined to advise for this farm the Leg- 
horn pullets and try them the second year. We need no fire or heating 
apparatus to this enterprise since it is not our purpose to call upon 
our pullets for eggs in the winter. We aim to carry these pullets 
through the winter well nourished for vigorous laying from January 
on until August thus covering the most prolific period of her life. The 
purpose being to pack the eggs the next morning after they are laid 
or the same night. 

And now we confront the question that has barred the great mass 
of those who keep poultry for profit from entering commercially 
into the production of eggs, we refer to the difficulty of preserving 
them for any considerable time perfectly pure. The difficulty that 
all have encountered should we think be first pointed out and then 
the right direction and the reason. We ourselves tried the famous 
"Havanna Method" and failed; first, because the "Havanna 
method " like the " Common Sense Hatcher " is destitute of the very 
essentials upon which success wholly depends. Second, it does not 



130 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 

exclude the cocks from association with the hens and so allows the 
eggs to become fertilized. Such an egg is very easily injured by the 
action of heat and it is almost impossible to gather eggs promiscu- 
ously and not include in your packing many that are blighted, even 
after subjecting all to the closest teat before a strong light. If only 
a few be blighted they injure all the rest, and so this fundamental 
fact is foreign to the method above mentioned. No method can keep 
pure eggs perfect if once they be fertilized. 

"What are the facts as afforded by actual experience ? An egg fer- 
tilized and subjected to heat will evince the transforming influence 
of the vital germ in a very few hours, whereas an egg not fertilized 
may be placed in an Incubator and subject to one hundred and three 
degrees of heat for ten or fifteen days and the egg will then look and 
smell and taste and digest perfectly pure. 

These are the all sufficient tests and prove that non-fertilized eggs 
will keep perfectly as against heat. 

But, how shall we pack them for certain success and assurance that 
they will be preserved pure through the whole of the spring, summer 
and atumnal season on until the price of eggs reaches from 25 to 40 
and 50 cents in December and January ? We answer, have no male 
birds on the place, raise your own eggs, gather them every night, let 
them get cool, pack them in perfectly pure and clean large boxes in 
a deep, dark, cold cellar in salt, with the big end of the egg down and 
the little end up, with salt between the layers and also between each 
egg. Why the big end down ? Because the air chamber is then at 
the bottom and supports the egg and as the air cannot escape up- 
ward and out but is beneath the egg's substance it does not escape 
at all. Whereas if the small end be down the air evaporates and the 
contents of the egg descend into the contracted space of the small 
end and often ruptures the lining membrane or allows air to enter 
above it and below the air chamber. Thus surrounded with the 
chlorine in the salt and free from any principle that can awaken 
ch&nge within the egg, thus packing on the big end and away from 
the light and where it is cool eggs will keep sweet and pure all sum- 
mer. The limeing process we think injurious because too caustic and 
has the effect when in solution of encrusting the egg and changing 
the color of the albumen a greenish straw color. All this requires 
much care in washing when ready for shipment. But we have been 
asked, " Is it possible that hens will lay without a male bird ?" 



STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 



131 



Persons who have raised chickens all their life ask seriously how 
long It takes the Incubator to hatch its brood and if we are in earnest 
in the assurance that ovulation in the hen is entirely uninfluenced by 
the cock ? Surely poultry culture is in its infancy. 

Well, we shall assume that no one will doubt that vigorous and 
well cared for Leghorn pullets will lay 130 eggs each inside of eight 
months. This with 1,000 such pullets would give us 130,000 eggs or 
10,833)^ dozens and counting these at 25 cents per dozen, gives us 
$2,708,25 or barring all accident and leaving a wide margin in price 
since at the season of the year specified it is never difficult even in 
villages to command from 35 to 45 cents for good eggs in January 
and until the 25th of February, but in great and populous cities it is 
more than reasonable to assume you can engage your ten or fifteen 
thousand dozens at from 35 to 50 cents per dozens, 

Thus the egg farm with but little cost and care when compared 
with all other avocations that yield the same income will be found 
the least hazardous and tho most fruitful. We believe it entirely 
safe to estimate a net profit of over $2 per hen. 

We have endeavored in presenting the great subject of poultry 
culture to the public in its triple aspect, divided as we did into its 
natural departments, to place each department before the public on 
its legitimate business basis. We, of course, could not be expected 
to assure any one nor do we know the realities wrapped up in either 
branch of this industry. We can offer you as much exactness as in 
agriculture or in merchandise or in the professions, we have given 
the underlieing principles of poultry culture and introduced it with 
all its past and its present status to your consideration. We have 
aimed above all things to be honest and place before all, the facts and 
the philosophy in their support, so that all might judge of the just- 
ness of our conclusions. In short, our purpose has been from the 
beginning of this book to include in its scope an honest advocacy 
of artificial incubation, and rearing chicks of all kinds, including 
their feed and essential necessities, their mating, management, dis- 
eases, cause and sure ; the possible profits of all departments of 
poultry culture end its history, past and present ; its development 
and all the influences that effect it. We have given it much thought 
and labor and hope we have succeeded to your satisfaction; and now 
dear friend, whoever and wherever you may be, if after you have 
read this book you desire to become a poultrymeu by profession be 



132 STANDAED AND COMMERCIAL POULTEY CULTUEE. 

careful and educate upward, slowly, economically and thus surely. 
Do not hurry ! the field will never be full. Its history points the 
other way, but that need not discourage us. We have intimated the 
prejudice and inacquaintance with the fundamental principles of 
poultry culture and have aimed to remove the dangers to be dreaded 
through disease. We believe we have proved that poultry culture will 
pay, and now as we part from this delightful theme we feel a sad- 
ness in saying farewell. We offer you all with our blessing and the 
hope that these pages will prove of great service to your business of 
scientific profitable poultry culture. 

Yours Fraternally, 

T. B. Spalding. 



STANDABD AND COMMEKCIAL FOTJLTBY CULTTJBE. 



133 




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134 



STANDABD AND COMMEBCTAL POULTEY CULTURE. 




*HE illustration and description of the Brooding House, 
with the article following is by I. K. Felch, and 
considering it of great merit, we asked permission of the 
publisher of Mr. Felch's book, Mr. W. H. Harrison, of 
Chicago, to use it in our book. Mr. Felch, says: 

Our plan for a chicken house is different from all others we have 
examined, and our brooders different. But Mr. Tribon, of Brockton, 
Mass., has the same thing, to all intents and purposes, only he uses 
a plain sheet of zinc instead of the water pans, relying on dry hot 
air, which we are not sure is just as well in the winter as to secure 
the moist heat over hot water, as per plan of brooders. 



V V 



V^ 



5X 12 



5X12 5X12 



5X12 



5X12 



5X12 



5X12 



5X12 



vWyVWyvR/vW^v^yVWyVWA.1^ 



Hall Way 3 ft. wide -6 inches lower than the Chicken Rooms 



Fig. 2 
GBOUND PLAN FOB CHICKEN HOUSE. 





A BBOODEB 



Fig. 3 Fig. 4 

Our chicken house is 15x40 feet in main building, cut up into a 
hallway (see ground plan), 3x40 feet and six inches lower than the 



STANDARD AND COMMEBCIAL POULTEY CUXTUBE. 125 

chicken rooms, eight in number, matching the eight wire projections 
5x4 in front to enable the chicks to take the air at will. They should 
be induced to take advantage of them by feeding them meat, excit- 
ing them to exercise while enjoying the tidbits of their noon meal. 
Each of the 5x12 foot rooms is furnished with a brooder (see Figs. 3 
and 4), the base (Fig. 3) being made square in front with a door to 
admit the lamp, the two sides and rear end being cut mitring, so as 
to have a base nine inches high. On this base rests a galvanized iron 
pan three-fourths of an inch deep, the rear flange wide enough to 
let through a tube of tin one and one-half inches in diameter, that 
all smoke may escape from as well as give draft to the lamp. Above 
the flange of the pan (by which means it is held in its position) a 
strip one half inch, or say three-fourths inches thick, and one inch 
wide is nailed, except on each side and end is left a gap of one inch, 
making an air-hole three-fourths by one inch (see Fig. 3.), and upon 
this rim rests the floor of the brooder one-half inch thick, thus leav- 
ing between the floor and the water in the pan an air-space one inch 
in heighth. In the center of brooder floor see tube two inches high 
and one and one-half inches in diameter that draws the hot air up 
from over the tank as it becomes warmed in its passage from the 
sides through the air-hole over the water, and it is radiated out over 
the chicks and escapes through the fringe of the brooder cover (Fig. 
4), the cover resting on the base (Fig. 3), as indicated by dotted 
lines. The brooder is heated by a kerosene light of the Diamond 
burner style. The base of brooder is 45x48 inches when it rests on 
the floor, and 30x36 on the floor of the brooder, the cover being 22x30 
inches long. On a warm night the chicks will lay all round the 
cover on the rim of the floor outside, and for this reason we make 
the cover smaller than the floor of the brooders. By our ground 
plan you see from the hallway these brooders (Fig. 2, A) are fitted 
into the chicken rooms so the floor of the brooder only rises two 
inches above the chick's earth floor : this gives easy access to the 
brooder for them. This we believe the best and cheapest brooder 
one can build. 



-A.TV. erican Poultry DB*ooc3L- 

Trial Package, one lbs., sent by mail, - - $ .60 

Two lbs., by express, .70 

Five lbs., - - - - - - • 1.25 

Ten lbs., ______ 2.00 

Twenty -five lhs., _____ 4.50 

Fifty lbs., - - - - - - 8.00 



ap-ULir© 0__"ia.>s____ecSL Hart*?- Bone. 

The bone we sell is made from selected shank bones, are crushed 
raw, and thoroughly dried, thus preserving all the gelatin and nut- 
riment of the bones that are entirely lost when the bones are boiled 
or burned. No poultry raiser should be without bone in his yards, if 
he wants strong healthy fowls. 

Fifteen lbs., by express. - $1.00 

Twenty-five lbs., - - - - 1.50 

Fifty lbs., _ _ _ _ _ 2.50 

One hundred lbs., - 4.00 

Add 50 cents for Cartage if sent by Freight. 



C3rx*a___L-u.la,toci Oyster Sliell. 

This shell is all made from clean, sweet, fresh oyster shells, and is 
the best that can be produced. 

Twenty-five lbs., by express, $ 1.00 

Fifty lbs., ------ 1.75 

One hundred lbs., ----- 2.50 

Add 50 cents for Cartage if sent by freight. 



TTJT'arca.'s noup Fil-Lss. 

These pills are intended for obstinate cases of Roup, and will, if 
followed up by care and cleanliness, cure in nearly every case. 
Box 50 pills, sent by mail - 50c 

Box 100 pills, - - - - - - 75c 

"\7VaL__*ci.' , s Cholera _E=»±lls- 

These piils have cured many cases of Cholera that seemed hopeless. 
But no medicine can cure all cases of Cholera, for if not taken in 
time, it will not do any good. 

Box 50 pills, sent by mail, - 50c 

Box 100 pills, - - - - - - 75c 

For sale by American Poultry Journal, Chicago, III. 



IS A THREE-COLUMN, THIRTY-SIX PAGE, BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE. 
Published at Chicago, 111., Subscription $1.00 a year. 

It is devoted to breeding and management of 

MIHMZRY, EI6B0FJ3 PR@ WEW STOCK. 

It has the largest Corps of Practical Breeders, as Editors and Correspon- 
dents, of a ny Journal of its class in America, and is the 

FINEST POULTRY JOURNAL IN THE f ORLD ! 

VOL. 17 BEGINS JANUARY, 1886. 

NO OTHER FIRST-CLASS POULTRY JOURNAL OFFERS 
SUCH LOW CLUB RATES. 

READ THIS SPECIAL OFFER! 

To Five Subscribers, One Year for - $3 00 

To Ten " " " - 5 00 

Send Six Cents for Specimen Copy. 



TH E P DULTE R ERS QU IDE 



Is a 48 page book, for treating diseases of poultry. Giving, con- 
cisely, the symptons of each disease, and remedies for their treat- 
ment and cure. Al so directions for Caponizing fowls, and the feed- 
ing and careing for chickens hatched in an Incubator, and many 
other things useful to the amateur and experienced breeder. Price 
only 25 cents, paper cover, or 40 cents bound in cloth. Address. 

American Poultry Journal, 

103 State Street, - - Chicago, 111- 







<mz 



IM- 



PERFECT HATCHER AND BROODER, 

Are the strongest and healthiest and obtain the highest prices. 
Chickens by onr system can be hatched and raised to three months 
of age at a cost of 5 to 8 cents per pound. The prices obtained are 
from 20 to 80 cents per pound, the year through. Can you see the 
profit f 

The artificial production of poultry is daily increasing in popular- 
ity, and is destined to become a great rnd remunerative industry. 
It is a business suitable for all classes of people, and can be conduc- 
ted with success by the Clergymen and his family, as well as the 
farmer and fancier. It is easily managed, and is already carried on 
by the sons and daughters of many prominent citizens as well as 
mechanics, etc. The invention of tha perfect Hatcher and Brooder 



has completely revolutionized this trade and thousands of chickens 
are now being hatched weekly to be sold as broilers, for which there 
is an ever increasing demand, at such prices as cannot fail to be re- 
munerative. 

The great problem, never before solved is how can a young man 
with a moderate income and a growing family, and a wife who is 
ambitious to assist in earnings and support of the family — how can 
she do her share and still remain at home to care for the children 
and house. This problem is now solved by our system. Any one 
with a good, ordinary city lot, say 60 x 125 feet, can put up a build- 
ing that will hold and raise to three months of age 2,600 chicks, and 
place in the market at least 800 chicks per month, on an average 
profit of 20 cents each, eight months in the year ; they can use our 
Portable Brooder, if on a rented spot, and place 400 chicks in market 
per month, from same space. This business also commends itself 
to widows with a growing family — clergymen, old people who can 
do light work, and a host of others to whom most avenues of employ- 
ment are closed, and remain at home and be independent. The 
market for this product is3 unquestioned. See our large circular for 
facts on this point. 

The largest part of our trade to-day is from our old customers, 
which is proof positive of the merits of our system. Our Incubator 
is known throughout the world as the standard Incubator. We 
have during the past year filled orders for the Ostriah Farms in Cal- 
ifornia, besides others for export to the following countries : Japan, 
Constantinople, Turkey ; Brazil, Panama, New Zealand, Gibralter 
and Barcelona, Spain ; Sweden, England, Paris, France ; Mexico, 
Sandwich Islands, and many other parts of the world. All this in 
addition to our domestic trade, which extends to every part of the 
Union. We can furnish testimonials by the hundreds— they come 
in every mail. 

^ °For further facts and information, address, 

THE PERFECT HATCHER CO., Elmlra, N. Y, 



the: 



PERFECT BROODER. 




i CXKScirinc&T. 7HKA. 



In offering our Brooder, with its latest improvements, we are con- 
fident it is in every respect what its name implies. We are con- 
scious that our earlier plans of brooders were not a success ; but it 
took time to develope all their defects. We therefore have been 
steadily advancing, until now we know it will do its work successful- 
ly, and is the successor and rival of the natural brooder — the hen. It 
is well known by all how she broods her chicks, viz., she sits upon 
the ground ; the chicks run under and around her body, with which 
they come in contact ; they are enveloped in her feathers and are 
surrounded on all sides by her warmth. She even warms the ground 
slightly, and thus keeps their feet and legs warm, which we find to 
be of the utmost importance. It would therefore seem that from the 
teachings of the mother hen, a successful brooder should long ago 
have been devised, but strange as it may seem, we have all gone 
astray. But we claim now to have solved the problem. The success- 
ful brooder must be based upon the principle of the hen, viz : a com- 



f ortable warmth surrounding the cnick, a warm floor — but not too 
warm — and a comfortably warm atmosphere surrounding the chick. 
The chick needs to lie down and sleep like any other animal. They 
cannot lie down on a cold floor ; it must be warm or they will huddle 
together, and then the mischief is to pay. The atmosphere must be 
warm or they will suffer. There must be good ventilation, and con- 
stant, or they will be poisoned by their own carbonic gas, the same 
as would result from a dozen people sleeping in a small room with 
all the doors and windows closed. The brooder must be portable : 
it must be placed on the ground, so the chicks can run in and out 
at their pleasure on pleasant days ; it must be storm proof, and 
proof against all animals dangerous to chickens ; it must have ample 
room for the chicks, so they can be kept inside on all cold and rainy 
days ; It must have a glass run, so that when the wind is sharp in 
March and April, November and December, the chicks can bask in 
the sunshine and bid defiance to the cold, shivery winds. It must 
be of that adjustable character to circumstances and seasons, that it 
can be placed in a building of any suitable character, or out on the 
lawn, or in the field, at the pleasure and convenience of the owner. 
It must be so arranged that a person can raise the largest number of 
chicks possible, in a state of health, on the smallest possible spot of 
ground. 



Q<1 SUCH A BROODER! I>> 

We offer to the public, to whom we appeal to jndge it upon its 
merits and with good common sense. 

Our system of brooding is in every respect equal to our system of 
hatching, and we can show that a loss of five per cent, in raising is 
too large, if proper care is given. We invite all interested to call and 
see us — see our Factory, our Brooding house, which holds 3,500 
chickens, and see the chickens themselves. We can prove what we 
claim. All information free. 



PERFECT HATCHER CO., Elmira, I. Y. 



The Original, Most Successful and Complete in the World! 




An Introduction given to Axford's 

' ic ubators at Colonel Wood's 

Museum, Chicago, by one of the 



These are Incubators, hatching by 
artificial means. Early chicks are 
what we want ; hens have no such de- 
sire. In 1870, with all the resources 
of science and skill, it was a marvel 
that attempts had not been made suc- 
cessful to excell Egypt and China, 
where for hundreds if not for thou- 
sands of years they have been hatched 
in immense numbers. There the fav- 
orable conditions must not be forgot- 
ten. The profession being handed 
down feom father to son, and all its 
details kept religiously secret. No 
European has ever bean allowed to 
visit the interior of the oven. Here 
we show yon the Chicago style ! Mr. 
Price $170.00 Axford, schooled in the geological 

museums of London, and having: been awarded prizes for electrical instru- 
ments in that city, in 1884, was a fit man to undertake it, and was first shown 
here in 1875, hatching chickens between Christmas and New Years. Chick- 
ens from it hatching on the cars, in the Northwest, with the thermometer 
20 degrees below zero ; on the upper decks of the U. S. mail boats, on the 
Mississippi ana Ohio Rivers, to Canada and sunny Mexico it has pleased 
thousands. They are also hatching now on the lakes. Mr. Axford ran 23 
at the Southern exhibition, the grandest effort ever made of modern incuba- 
tion and were the only ones present. The machines are quite simple, and 
if you have any friends in the country, they will be under obligations to you 
when you send them our circular. 

We have now excellent facilities for doing fine work, having introduced 
machinery, and employ non but the best of skilled mechanics. 
Look out for the original as infringements are out. 

" No Incubator is of any value nnless it contains within itself every con- 
dition that nature furnishes for the successful hatching of the chick." 
Here is where the Axford lays out all other competitors. 

Send stamp for circular. Be sure and write your Name, Town, County, 
and State, plainly, and give full shipping directions when ordering. 
Inquire at 5th and Cottage Grove Avenue. 

AXFOHI> c*3 BRO., 

CHICAG-O, XXjXj. 

Take Cottage Grove Ave. Cars, or 111. C. R. R. to 43d St. 




m 



ftXFORD'S e INCUBATORS 




The Original, Most Successful and Complete in the World , 

Price, $30.00, Capacity 11 Dozen. 

60,00, " 35 

Additional Nests of any Capacity, may 

be added at any time. Price of 1 1 

Doz., $20.00, and 32 Doz. $35. 

oQ seasoned and Re-tested Thermometers, Boxed $1. |>> 

Sent by mail free 

«lGETOUREGGTESTER!t» 

And thereby hatch twice as many chickens. The result will surprise you ! 
—Any one can use it. Mailed for 35 cents.— 

„ ■=Qb_ j0 . 




ODR ALARM BELL FOR HEAT OR COLD ! 

Is a wonder, and will always do good service as an extra guard against ac- 
cidents, or any maliciously disposed person. As an alarm in case of 
fire it is invaluable, and will save lives and any amount of 
property. Price $6.00, including the battery. 



02-^20 



We have nerer sold Brooders, but give plans to our customers how to 
build them, as well as cheap permanent brooding houses for large quanti- 
ties in which chicks can be grown cheaply with ease. But for any who 
may not have the facilities, we will make one for sample, for 50 chicks with 
lamp, etc., $12. 

Send stamp for circular. Be sure and write your name, town, county and 
State, plainly, and give full shipping directions when ordering. Enquire 
at 45th and Cottage Grove Avenue. 



LID cfe BRO., 

CHICAGO, ILL. 

Take Cottage Grove Ave. Cars or 111. C. R. R, to 43th St. 



CAPON INSTRUMENTS, 




IRSJPRUfflBRSPS F6R SRflKIRS GflFS^S, 



-WITH FULL PRINTED INSTRUCTIONS. 



^M &S^c 



-^MANUFACTURER OF^* 



FINE CUTLERY AND SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS, 
E.H.YARNRLL, 

115 SOUTH 10TH ST. PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



| « THE CLIMAX JNOUBflTOR AND BROODER. * ) 




The Climax Incubator 
stands at the head of 
the list. Heat, Moisture 
and Ventilation under 
perfect control. It has 
the finest regulator of 
any Incubator in the 
World, the Electric Bell 
is a perfect safe guard 
againts all accident* 
Cheap, simple, durable 
reliable. 



CLIMAX 
BROODER 



It is just as perfect as the Hatcher, positively non-crowding, perfectly 
heated and ventilated, and has all the essentials of a first-class mother. 

T- I*. OOXJSIKTJS c*3 CO., 

251a:o_o, MicKleeu. Oo- ? Fa» 

jgi^SSend for Descriptive Pamphlet. 



*d THE f> 



«°* W ™Z CUB >«>* 




This niachine has made the best public and private record of any Incuba- 
tor ever invented. It has never hatched less than 90 per cent, of the fertile 
eggs wherever it has been exhibited in public. 

The " Monarch " won the first premium in the great competition of In- 
cubators at Madison Square Garden, New York City, February, '85., for 
hatching the greatest number of chickens, and the best percentage of eggs 
Thirty-two machines competing, W. C. Baker, Judge. 

The eggs were carried three hundred miles in a trunk the day before 
hatching. 

Waltham, Dec. 11, '84. 

The committee on awaiding the prize of forty dollars, offered by the 
" Waltham Fanciers' Club," for the best approved Incubator in actual oper- 
ation, hatching chickens during the exhibition, Dec. 9, 10 and 11, 1884, 
awarded the prize to the " Monarch " Incubator, invented and exhibited by 
James Rankin, of South Eas.on, Mass. And the committee do hereby cer- 
tify, that the hatch was 95 per cent, of 475 eggs which were placed in the 
Incubator the first day the exhibition opened ; and that the eggs 
were out of the Incubator three hours and fifteen minutes in transporta- 
tion, and were transported forty miles by rail and four miles by carriage- 
road before arriving at the exhibition. 

J. H. SWASEY. ) 

Geo. Wolley J- Committee. 
W. E. Shedd, ) 
Taunton, Jan. 11, 1884. 
Mr. James Rankin : 

We desire to thank you for the fine display you made with your Incuba- 
tor at our fair last week. It was the center of attraction for all. The fact 
that you brought about 400 eggs from Easton with the mercury at zero, 
packed them in the Incubator and had them hatching the next day, and got 
a yield of 90 per cent, in fine healthy chickens, is recommendation enough 
for your machine. Wishing you the success you deserve, we remain, yours 
truly, F. L. Fish, Pres. of Southern Mass. Poultry Association. 

Philander WilliAms, Vice-Pres. of Southern Mass. Po'ltry Asso'tion. 



^P^Send for Circular. Address JAMES RANKIN, South Easton, 



<ITHE> 

Wee IAemrbfi Brssbbr! 




No more failures in the Poultry busieess on account 
of Inability to Raise Chicks. 

THE MOST RELIABLE BROODER ON THE MARKET, 

MANUFACTURED BY 

PELZ & GO., 



-DEALERS IN- 



INCUBACORS^ POULTRY SUPPLIES 

Of every description. All the leading Incubators in constant oper- 
ation at our store- Send for our price list. 



103 North Second St. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA 




HBTCHER^BROODER! 

The " Success " Hatcher now stands Second 

to None. It is the best 

ELECTRIC REGULATED INCUBATOR ! 

In the world. We make no exceptions. The battery lasts two years 

without any attention and turns the Lamp Flame down and 

opens the valve without any complicated clock work. It has 

extra moisture pans for use in warm weather, saving the 

trouble of sprinkling the eggs. We are willing to 

put the " Success " against any Electric Regulated 

Incubator in the world for $100.00 cash. Di- 

plomas or Medals not wanted. 

jflgpSend for our new circular giving testimonials. It will only 
cost you a postal card. Address, 

THE "SUCCESS HATCHER CO., Lancaster, Pa. 



THE BEST HATCHERS AND BROODERS ON EARTH! 



The vexed question at last solved. The long looked for perfection 
in artificial hatching realized without batteries, springs or clock 
work. We guarantee the machine to keep the same tempera- 
ture winter or summer. It requires no Electrician or 
Engineer. A child can manage it successfully. 



PRICE-LIST OF HATCHERS. 

No. I, 200 Egg Capabity. - $35.00 

" 2, 400 '■ " - 65.00 

" 3, 800 " " - 100.00 




PRICE-LIST OF BROODERS. 



*o. 1, 200 Chicks, - 


- $15.00 


" 2, 400 <• - 


25.00 


" 3, 800 


30,00 



Send For Oircular. 



-FOE ALL KINDS OF- 



<x\ FANCY CHICKENS, D» 






^0 AND EGGS. >> 
G. C CTHXFPUi A CO.. 

NO. 59 MARKET ST. - - CHICAGO, ILL. 



<*1C.V. GROSS, t» 



.MANUFACTURER OF_ 




THE WESTERN MUBATOR 



—And the GROSS Automatic Self-Feeding— 

iBtoufeat©^ Lamp, 
Drinking Fountains, 

Hgg Testers and 

o<l TESTED THERMOMETERS. fx> 

Egg Turning Trays and Poultry Breeders' Supplies. 

2117 and 3119 State St. Chicago. 111. 



THE BEST MACHINE OUT 




THE AMERICAN Ifi INCUBATOR 




The Incubator above Illustrated embodies in mam ^Principles 
employed in the construction of the AMERICAN INCUBATOR 
for the past year. But I have spared no pains or expense 
of money, thought or labor to improve my machine 
in every possible way, and to keep fully abreast 
with the advanced thought of the times. 
The American Incubator is offered to the public in full confidence that it 
meets a long and widely-felt, as well as growing need of poultry rais- 
ers whether producing for the market or simply for fancy. 

No. 1, holding 150 eggs 



1, with extra oven 

2, holding 250 eggs 

2, with extra oven 

3, holding 500 eggs 



$30 00 
45 00 
35 00 
55 00 
50 00 



Brooder capable of containing 100 chicks, complete, g ^ 

TheTncubato^ with all its parts, crated for shipmen^we_^hs about 150 
pounds ; brooder, BO pounds: J- J_>- SJVLi A -"•> 

4225 Laiigley Av„ Chicago, 111- 



|o. a oubhxngu 



ST. LOUIS. - MO. 

c^n Breeder of Thoroughbred Pedegree 



Ejig^lxt Bralimas, 
H.- O- TTVliite Legliorns, 
nyna.oTa.tlx Hocl3Ls and. 
Royal rols-ixx ZDtxcIsjs. 

I>0<<! EGGS IN THEIR SEASON. >>0< 

I keep nothing but the very best. Satisfaction guaranteed. 

©@ 

THE NEW "SUCCESS" HSTCHER! 

Stands at the head. The flame turns up and down and the valve opened 
and closed with out clock work, weights, chain or pulleys. Our 
—new battery needs no attention for two years.— 
(JEP^Read what ihe author of this book says : 
C. C. Gushing: 

402 North Second Street, St. Louis, Mo. 
Dear Sir : The 400 egg " Success " came and is in line of duty, andholde 
her temperature to a dot. She works like " a thing of life." I verily be 
lieve her, all things considered, her beauty and merit, her perfect reliability 
and her low price, and in fact, her Perfect Success, to be the best machine 
in existence. Yours Fraternally. T. B. Spalding, M. D., 

Edwardsville, 111. 



BUYING 

<0 Incubators, Brooders, Fowls, Eggs, Wire Ming, Poultry Journal or BooKs |>» 

Send for my fine Illustrated Circular. 
N. B.— Machine Shipped From St. Louis or Lancaster, Pennsylvania 




I THERMOSTATIC 1 1NCUBATOR, 



14 




VENCILBTING BROODER 

In their Operation copy the hen more closely 
than any other machine. 

THE THERMOSTATIC INCUBATOR 



Regulates the heat automatically and certainly without using electri- 
cal apparatus, and without lamp trips ; has constant descending 
ventilation, so that it does not become foul ; supplies mois- 
ture automatically ; enahles the chick to leave the egg 
trays as soon as hatched, so that the eggs are not 
fouled by droppings ; is more easily managed 
than any other incubator ; has the best record 
of any machine in the market. 



VENTILATING BROODER 

Heats and ventilates from beneath by warm air, and obviates the 
stifling of chickens by crowding. For testimonials and price list ap- 
ply to 

E. S. BESWICK, Patentee ana Manufacturer, 

19 Park Place, - - New York, N. Y 



<< JAMES E.WHITE> 

WAUKEGAN, LAKE, CO. ILL. 

<§BREEDER OF@ 

PLYMOUTH ROCKS#WYHNDOTTES. 

Winners of the highest honors at Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, 
Toledo, St. Louis, etc. My birds have won the best prizes wher- 
ever exhibited, and are recognized as the choicest in America. 
Have been a breeder continuously for ten years, and an 
exhibitor for nine consecutive years. 

PLYMOUTH ROCKS, GMT OF BATTLES STRAIN, 

" Giant of Battles " was the sire of " Ben Hur " and the grandsire of 

"True Blue," both of which birds I raised and sold ; and this 

strain has produced more prize-winners during the past four 

years than any other in America. 

RECORD, 1885: 

At the Great Chicago Exhibition , won 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th on Cocks 

2nd, 4th, and 5th on Hens ; 1st and 3d on Cockerels ; 1st, 3d, 

4th and 5th on Pullets, and 1st and 3d on breeding-pens 

WYANDOTTES, Black-Hawk, Strain. 

RECORD, 1885. 

At the Great Chicpgo Exhibition my birds won 1st, 3d and 4th on 

Cockerels ; 1st, 2d. 3, 4th and 5th on Pulletts ; 1st & 2d on 

Breeding-pens 



THE WORLD'S FAVORITE! 

IFor Sale No^t 1 . 



The universal experience of eminent Poultry Fanciers accords the 
Light Brahma the first place in egg production and for a profitable 
and all purpose fowl. I breed them exclusively from Felch's Pedi- 
greed Registered Fowls. 



EGGS IN SEASON $4.00 PER 13. 



Too FINE CHICKS FOR SALE NOW, 100 



"No variety of pure-bred Poultry has retained the public favor and 
that of poultry fanciers so long, as the Light Brahma." American 
Poultry Journal. 

"Light Brahmas never lose their hold on public favor. " Fancier's 
Gazette. 



"The Light Brahma has been thoroughly canvassed for 30 year's, 
have never been supplanted by any breed and thus they bring the 
best evidence of their merit. They bear the stamp of true nobility 
in form and carriage, and will please and satisfy all who love large 
fowls." Joseph Wallace, Ed, Nat. Poultry Monitor'. 



"Mrs. Judy and her splendid Light Brahmas will never disappoint 
anybody. Db. T. B. Spallding. 



My male birds score up in the nineties, and pullets 94 and upwards. 
One pullet "Daisy" began laying at six months, and laid 15 eggs in 
February, and 94 eggs in the following 97 days. My three "Belles 
of Madison " laid 275 eggs in 106 days. Address, 

MRS. R. A. JUDY, 

Edx^-ax-diS "trill©, 111. 



CHE POULTRY KEEPER ! 

Has the Largest Circulation of any Poultry Paper 
, n , ^ in the "World.[E^« > _ 

P. B. JACOBS, Xdltor. 



PUBLISHED AT- 



PARKESBURG, CHESTER COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA. 

Subscriptions : One Year, 50 cents ; Six months, 25 cents. Has 

over 100 contributors. Is a free and independent journal, and 

is filled with choice reading matter on 

o<l PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPING? t>» 



SASVEFIjIE COFY FREE TO AIjIj 

The Poultby Keepeb was formerly published at Chicago, by 

W. V. R. Powis. It has been purchased by a company, who 

intend to give it every advantage. The company does 

not deal in any kind of poultry supplies except books, 

preferring to push the paper, and give the adver- 

tisers the benefit of all sales. 

USF'Send for a Sample Copy. Address, 

POULTRY KEEPER, Parteslmrg, CHester County, Pennsylvania. 



CTESTOXTS 



/ 



WYANDOTTES, 

WHITE COCHINS, 

WHITE LEGHORNS, 



' WHITE CRESTED BLACK POLISH. 



Winner's of 1st Prizes at the Worlds Expositions, New Orleans, 
and at leading exhibition during the last six years. Send for illus- 
trated circular. Address, 

HIG-HLAND PARK, ILL. 



Grind Your Own Bone Meal, Oyster 
Shells and Corn in the $5 Hand Mill 

(F. Wilson's Pat.). Circulars Free. 
Address 




» WILSON BROS. Easton, Pa.! 



m 



100 per ct. more made in keeping poultry. 

SHILOH, N. J., CUMBEBIiAND County, Feb. 1884. 
Wilson Bros Dear Sirs :— I deceived the bone and shell mill you sent in 
the Fall. Should have acknowledged the receipt of it sooner, but I wanted 
to give it a fair trial, which I have done, and would recommend it to all 
who keep poultry. I would not take twenty-five dollars for mine if I could 
not get another. P. S.— To prove my assertion above : While my neigh- 
bors during the month of January, were getting but 2 or 3 eggs a day. I 
was getting from 20 to 41 per day. From January 1st to the 31st inclusive, 
1 got 792 eggs from my flock. I have callers almost every day to see the 
mill. Yours Truly, Geobge Bonttatvt. 



<XIT. B. SPALDING, IX> 



EDWARDSVILLE, ILLINOIS, 

Originator and Breeder of the 




OM ftE STRAIN OF BUFF CO CHINS 

«1 PURE PARTRIDGE COCHINS l> 

DARK BRAHMAS AND ESSEX PLYMOUTH ROCKS 

, n , ^ ALSO F^=> , . 

FO^TLS aixca. CHICKS 

Of highest standard excellence for sale. I raise and sell nothing but the 
very best stock. Eggs for sale in season at $5 per 13. 

^SfSend 2-cent Stamp for Illustrated Circular. 



i xps^ JsMm 



$ 



CENTRAL ILLINOIS POULTRY YARDS, 

W. L. E, JOHNSON, 

Bvi.ols.ley, IroQTjiois Co., Ills. 



Importer and Breeder 

High Class Langshan's 

— AND — 

TVliite Cocliins. 



SEND FOB CIRCULAR. 



(%\W¥? ^wH^ 



Pmepi(iaH*l , ©uIfePY#F©®d! 

a tonic food that keeps fowls healthy, and 
Carries them Through Moulting Safely. 

It is made of the purest and best materials, and contains the phos- 
phates and iron, etc., that go to form bone, re-invigorates the blood 
and in every way tone up and strengthen the_ system. All these in- 
gredients are in such form as to be quickly assimilated by digestion 
and the good effects are at once visible in the appearance of the 
fowls. In offering this preparation to the public, the proprietors are 
aware of the difficulty attending the introduction of an article claim- 
ing so much as the "Poultry Food " without the support of un- 
undoubted evidence of its value. We have, therefore, taken the liberty 
to publish a few of the numerous letters received from well-known 
gentlemen in poultry breeding, who have used it, and whose testi- 
mony raises the article above suspicion of any attempt to humbug 
the people. (These testimonials will be sent to anyone who wishes to 
see them. ) 

The first effect of the " Food" is to bring the Fowls into a fine, 
healthy condition, thus fortifying them against the maladies which, 
as in the human family, first attack the least vigorous. It also sup- 
plies all the material of which the egg is composed, and by its tonic 
and gently stimulating action enables the fowls to yield a supply of 
eggs that seem incredible to a person accustomed to receive only 
the ordinary number from his hens. 

Its general bracing effect on fowls acts as a preventive of the ord- 
inary diseases, such as Roup, Cholera, etc., and even after an at- 
tack, it will soon restore them to perfect health. When the fowl has 
Cholera, or Roup, also in damp, cold weather, the dose should be in- 
creased to double the quantity directed. 

For Sale by AMERICAN POULTRY JOURNAL, Chicago, III. 



PHENIQUE. 

Best disenfeotant for Poultry Houses yet discovered. 
Price , 5 pounds - $ .50 

10 pounds - - 1.00 

PERSIAN INSECT POWDER. 

The only thing safe to use on young chicks to exterminate lice. 
Sample box by mail - - $ .75 

By express, one dollar per pound. 

GALVANIZED STEEL WIRE NETTING. 

2 inch mesh, by the roll, of 50 yards at \% cents per square foot 
any width. Price less than roll 2^ cents per square foot. 

WILSON'S BONE MILLS 

Price. - - - - $5.00 each. 

INCUBATORS AND BROODERS. 

We furnish any make of Incubators and Brooders at manufacturers 
prices. 

COXIGRU. 

Exterminates all lice and vermin, especially good for setting hen's 
nests. Price, by mail, 1 lb, 50 cts ; by express, 5 lbs. $1.25 ; 10 lbs. 

$1.75 

WARDS AUTOMATIC WATER FOUNTAINS. 

For Poultry and Pigeons always clean. Never runs over or drowns 
the chicks. Price 75 cents each. $7.00 per doz. 

J@f~ Send for our illustrated price list of poultry yard supplies. 
Containing instruction how to make capons. Sent on receipt of a 
2-cent stamp. 

American Poultry Journal, Chicago. 





i f MEAT AND VEGETABLE CHOPPER! j 

This is the Best Chopper for Breeders now in the Market. 

No. 1, 8 inch cylinder, Price, - - 85 00 

Outs three pounds of meat in three minutes. Sufficiently 
large for a flock of fifty fowls. 

No. 2, 10 inch cylinder, Price, - - 7 00 

Cuts five or six pounds in three to four minutes. Suitable 
for a flock of 160 fowls. 

No. 3, 12 inch cylinder, Price, - - 10 00 

Cuts eight to ten pounds, in four minutes. 

This size is especially adapted for cutting cooked meats, fruit and 
vegetables, for those raising fowls for market ; can furnish larger 
sizes that cut 100 pounds an hour, prices up to $75. 

Insect Powder Blowers, each 35 cents, by mail. 

Carbolated Sulphur Nest Eggs, 75 cents per dozen, by express only. 

Egg-shipping Labels, 50 cents per 100. 

Spring Punch, for marking chickens, $1.00. This is a spring 
punch, and makes a clean cut. It does not bruise the web of the 
foot nor make it sore. Cuts hole this size : O 

Tube Egg Testers, by mail, 30 cents. 

Ward's Farmers Caponizing Instruments, per set, with spreader, 

$2.75. 

Tarnall's, the finest made, per set, $4.00. 
For Sale by American Poultry Journal, 103 State St. Chicago, III. 



FRISBEE'S: ART: STUDIO 



E^IANDr^ 



wmotq. aopmsr c ao^gii, 

No . 1 , Cedar Avenue. 
MAG-NOLIA, NANSEMOND CO., VIRGINIA. 



I take this method of introducing my business, which is exclusively the 
copying of all kinds of pictures to cabinet and card sizes, from wood cuts, 
tintypes, engravings, or any picture of any person, building or animal. 
Fanciers now have an opportunity of getting a genuine Photograph of 
themselves, or pets, at a low rate, and a hne Photograph of stock you can 
offer to your customers at a very reasonable price, thereby making it of 
mutual benefit. 

Mail me any picture you wish copied, with money enclosed, and I will 
fill your order promptly, and return your original picture if desired. 

These Photographs ar# taken in the most artistic manner ; the best ma- 
terial is used and I will guarantee a photograph equal or superior to the 
copy sent, or cheerfully refund your money. I guarantee all work. 

Compare my prices with your Photographers, and see if you cannot get 
them of me much cheaper. I can generally improve the style of an old 
photograph. Can copy from any sized picture . Where you have not a 
picture it is cheapest to get a tintype taken. 

The following are my lowest prices for Photographs of Poultry or Pet 
Slock of any kind : 

WHOLESALE PRICE LIST OF FINE BURNISHED PHOTOGRAPHS 

Cabinet, $1.80, per doz.; 1-2 doz. $1.00; 4 doz. $6,00 ; 8 doz. $10.00. 



Cards, 1.25, 



U 



.80; 4 



400; 8 



6.00 



Where special negatives are wanted of persons, stock or buildings, I can 
take no order for less than two dozen, at the above rate. I have been in- 
spired by a desire to furnish my friends with Photographs at a reasonable 
price, so that all could afford to have them, and I trust to receive a share 
of your patronage. 

I shall endeavor to satisfy every one favoring me with an order. If you 
wish to see samples of my work before ordering I will send them as fol- 
lows : Cabinets 25 cents; Cards 15 cents; Stamps 3 cents each, in two cent 
postage stamps or silver. I cannot send samples free but will deduct price 
from lirst order, which will insure me from loss, as my prices are very 
close. Send 8 cents per doz. for cards, and six cents per doz. for Cabinets 
and I will send them by mail. Address letters to 

FRISBEE'S ART STUDIO, Magnolia, Mseionl Co. Va. 

Jg^Send 10 cents for Catalogue giving full particulars, and samples of 
stamp photographs. 

In tvriting to above be sure to mention POULTRY CULTURE. 



sid. eoweEit, 




Feather from a 96% point Plymouth Rock. 

BREEDS MORE, AND FINER 

PRIZE PLYMOUTH ROCKS AND WYANDOTTES. 

Stock always for sale at low prices. For quality of stock send for new il- 
lustrated circular ; giving prices, matings and prizes won at the big shows. 
Egers from prize birds $3 and $5 a sitting. Also fine prize Jersey cattle for 
sale at low prices, get the best and finest of SID. CONGER, Flat Rock, Ind. 



THE* 



; NHIONUj j INCUBATOR,; ] 



«] IMMENSE SUCCESS !»o 

It is so pronounced by the practical breeders and farmers from all over 

the country. The hatching qualities are unexcelled. The average 

being from 90 to 98 per cent. Price and capacity as follows : 

lOO Eggs - $12 OO 

2SO " - - 18 OO 

SOO " - - - 23 OO 

Agent for the Yarnel Caponizing instruments, the best in use. Also for 
all Poultry Journals and any poultry book published. I issue semi-annu- 
ally, from 20,000 to 25,000 circulars. It is a first class advertising medium as 
testimonals show. Send stamp for circular. Address, 



74 South Ave. 



E. E. BADGER, BocHester. N. Y. 













JOTPJJI 










:v ..." . •-., .- 



, . . ■'; 






mii^Sti 






salts 

HwTd 
















